Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Aberdeen Corporation (General Powers) Order Confirmation Bill,

Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE JOINT HOSPITAL DISTRICT) BILL,

"to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the South Staffordshire Joint Hospital District," presented by Mr. Elliot; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 47.]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

WHEAT AND FLOUR.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether he will consider introducing legislation to ensure that all offals relating to imported flour are also imported;
(2) whether he will consider introducing legislation to ensure that all wheat imported into this country should be imported whole to ensure that all the flour is milled in this country?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I am afraid that I cannot accept either of my hon. Friend's suggestions.

Mr. De la Bère: If not, why not? Does not my right hon. Friend realise that some inquiry is needed to enable the home producer to ascertain the reason for the price of offals; and is he aware that since 1925 there has been no inquiry on this subject?

Mr. Stanley: I was not asked about an inquiry; I was asked about two specific

pieces of legislation. If my hon. Friend wishes to know why I reject his suggestions, it is, first, because I believe they would be impracticable, and, secondly, because I believe they would be ineffective.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in respect of the 30,000 truckloads of wheat from Rumania, purchased by the Government whole, any portion of this will be available for the country millers?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir. As I explained to the House on 2nd June last, all wheat in the Government reserve, when it becomes due for milling to prevent deterioration, is taken by the three large concerns which are assisting the Government in the administration of the wheat storage scheme.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that the country millers are entitled to some consideration, if a monopoly of milling combines is to be avoided?

Mr. Stanley: I think that the House was satisfied with the explanation I gave as to the arrangements made for turning over Government wheat. I am satisfied that, if it were pot dealt with in this way, the only alternative would be, when the wheat became due for milling, to throw it on to the open market, which would have a very bad effect on prices.

Mr. Kirkwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that precautions are taken so that, in the even of a war or something of that kind occurring, it will be made possible for the poor to have an equal opportunity of getting the flour produced from this wheat?

Mr. Stanley: That is rather a different question, but it is present to my mind.

Later—

Mr. De la Bère: I beg to give notice that, in view of the extremely unsatisfactory nature of the replies to questions 1, 2 and 3, I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Thorne: On a point of Order. Is an hon. Member entitled to give notice of that kind about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after his questions have been put?

Mr. Speaker: I think not.

Mr. Thurtle: Is not the hon. Member entitled to think the matter over before he gives notice?

ITALY (PAYMENT FOR BRITISH SHIPMENTS).

Mr. Petherick: asked the President of the Board of Trade the average delay involved between receipt of shipping documents in Italy for British shipments to that country and payment of the corresponding sterling to such exporters; whether he is aware that the delay is causing distress amongst the fishermen and loss to the exporters of pilchards to Italy and also to exporters of china clay and other commodities; and what action he is taking?

Mr. Stanley: I regret that information is not available which would enable me to answer the first part of the question. I can, however, state that the delay between the deposit of lire in Italy in respect of United Kingdom exports and the release of the sterling to the exporters through the clearing account concerned is at present about 21 weeks. I have received certain representations on this subject. The question of the steps to be taken to reduce the delay in transfer is at present under discussion with the Italian authorities.

Mr. Beechman: With regard to the Italian pilchard payments, will my right hon. Friend consider making arrangements whereby, on payment of a suitable commission, the Government will advance to the exporters the sterling equivalent of the purchase price as soon as that price is deposited with the appropriate bank by the Italian firms?

Mr. Stanley: That raises a wider question.

EAST AFRICA (TRADING FACILITIES).

Mr. Fleming: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the British East African Colonies are included in the terms of the Congo Basin Treaty of 1885 and the Anglo-Japanese Agreement of 1919, in respect of trading facilities?

Mr. Stanley: I assume that my hon. and learned Friend, when he refers to the Anglo-Japanese Agreement of 1919, has in mind the Convention of St. Germain-en-Laye relating to the Congo Basin, to which Japan is a party. The

British Colonial Dependencies to which the instruments of 1885 and 1919 apply are Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Nyasaland and part of Northern Rhodesia.

Mr. Fleming: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great dissatisfaction that exists in Lancashire over the critical effects of these treaties and conventions as regards the export of textiles to our own Colonies in Africa?

Mr. Stanley: I have already explained on many occasions that we have been advised by the Law Officers that we have no power to denounce these treaties. My right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade has explained that the total import of cotton goods into all the Colonies mentioned amounted in 1937 to about £1,000,000.

FOREIGN COMPETITION.

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has had any discussions with representatives of the German Government in reference to the methods adopted by them to expand their export trade, with a view to reaching an agreement between the two countries to avoid the intense competition for markets that is now taking place?

Mr. Stanley: No formal discussions with representatives of the German Government have taken place on trade matters since the Anglo-German Payments (Amendment) Agreement was signed on 1st July. Informal conversations have, however, taken place between officials when opportunity has offered.

Mr. Griffiths: Will advantage be taken of Dr. Schacht's visit to this country to discuss these problems with him; and is it an official visit?

Mr. Stanley: That is a question for another Department to answer. We do take the opportunity of having informal talks as and when it is possible, in the hope that they will develop into formal negotiations later on, but I feel that the value of these informal talks would be very much diminished if all the occasions and subjects discussed were made public.

Mr. J. Morgan: Is the right hon. Gentleman's Department likely to be in touch with Dr. Schacht this time?

Mr. Stanley: No formal negotiations are contemplated.

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is having consultations with the trades and industries concerned as to the most effective ways of maintaining our export trade in face of the methods adopted by certain competing countries; what organisations are being consulted; and whether he will lay before the House the plans he proposes to adopt to maintain our export trade?

Mr. Arthur Henderson: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps are being taken by His Majesty's Government to procure a greater degree of organisation in those industries whose products are exported so that this country may compete on fair terms with totalitarian countries?

Mr. Stanley: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade said yesterday, in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke), discussions have already taken place with a number of industries on the possibility of meeting the difficulties they encounter in export trade by a greater co-ordination of effort. These discussions are being continued, and I am ready to consider representations on the subject from any exporting industry. The problems involved differ from industry to industry, and the method of treatment can generally best be considered in the first place by the industry concerned.

Mr. Griffiths: May we take it from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that these are not the maximum measures that the Government are prepared to take to deal with this important matter?

Mr. Stanley: The measures, of course, deal with rather a different aspect of helping our export trades. They deal with the possibility of their helping themselves by co-ordination of their efforts.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it the intention of the Government in all cases to await representations from trading interests, rather than to approach those trading interests themselves?

Mr. Stanley: Both my right hon. Friend and myself have taken every opportunity in speeches to bring to the notice of exporting industries the possibility, and, indeed, the desirability, of taking action

of this kind. As my right hon. Friend said in reply to a question, the response has been very encouraging, and a number of discussions have been going on.

Mr. Levy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the industries concerned recognise that this is the only method by which they can combat the throat-cutting competition of totalitarian countries?

Sir Louis Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the engineering industry is perhaps the most hurt at the moment; and will he get into touch with that industry as early as possible?

Mr. Stanley: "The engineering industry" is a rather wide term. Probably an organisation of this kind would be better carried out by sections of the industry, rather than by the industry itself.

LIVESTOCK AND MEAT (IMPORTS).

Mr. Lambert: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has made or intends to make any order regulating the import of livestock or meat into the United Kingdom under Section if of the Livestock Industry Act, 1937?

Mr. Stanley: An order regulating imports of fresh and frozen pork from foreign countries, which was originally made under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, is now in force under the Section to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. No other Order has so far been made under the Section, but imports of beef and mutton and lamb from foreign countries are regulated under the Ottawa Agreements Act. I cannot at present say whether it will be necessary in the future to make further use of the powers under the Livestock Industry Act.

BULBS AND FLOWERS (IMPORTS).

Mr. Petherick: asked the President of the Board of Trade the volume, in tons, of bulbs and of flowers imported into the United Kingdom in 1929, 1937, and the first nine months of 1938, respectively?

Mr. Stanley: As the answer involves a table of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Do not the Dutch bulb growers obtain an unfair


advantage over British bulb growers by employing the device of making free gifts of old or unwanted bulbs to the Government and to public authorities, and so obtaining cheap and valuable publicity?

Table showing the quantity and declared value of flowers and bulbs imported into the United Kingdom during the periods specified.


Description.
Unit of Quantity.
Quantity.
Declared Value.


1929
1937
Jan. to sept., 1938.
1929
1937
Jan. to sept.,1938.







£000
£000
£000


Cut flowers
Ton
(a)
5,009
4,178
729
637
545


Bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes.
Thousand (b)
375,771
1,014,245
1,076,469
1,292
1,617
1,554


(a) Recorded by value only in 1929.


(b) Particulars of weight are not available.

ARGENTINA.

Mr. Tomlinson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the memorandum submitted to him by the deputation representing the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, in which it was suggested that action should be taken to improve the Lancashire trade with Argentina; and what action has been taken or is contemplated?

Mr. Stanley: I understand that the Argentine Government are taking action to afford further protection to their own textile industries against the increasing competition of low-priced foreign goods in Argentina. Such action, in so far as it is successful in its object, may be expected also to benefit the United Kingdom export trade to that market. The deputation to which the hon. Member refers represented, however, that there is a danger that the proposed measures might be to some extent evaded by the diversion of foreign goods to this country for finishing and re-exportation as United Kingdom goods. His Majesty's Ambassador at Buenos Aires has accordingly been instructed to suggest to the Argentine Government certain specific measures which would have the effect of hindering any such diversion.

Mr. Tomlinson: Are these specific measures to introduce the woven and finished formula undertaking with regard

Mr. Stanley: I should have thought that, if the bulbs were unwanted, they would not be likely to produce good results, and so would not produce a very favourable impression.

Following is the answer:

to cotton imported goods that was given in 1936 by the Argentine Government?

Mr. Stanley: My representations referred to the formula called "spun, woven, and finished."

PIT-PROPS (PRICES).

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fall in price during the past year of British timber used for pit-props; and whether he proposes to take any action?

Mr. Stanley: I am aware that the price both of home grown and of imported pit-props has fallen substantially below the abnormally high level which was reached last year, but my information is that present prices are not lower than those ruling in earlier years.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Is it possible for the Forestry Commission as well as private growers to appear before the Import Duties Advisory Committee to put their case?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir. They have a pre-emptive guarantee under certain trade agreements.

Mr. T. Smith: Is it not a fact that very little British timber is used for pit-props?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir; I think it is about 5 per cent.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: If that is so, would it not be a good thing to encourage it, so that we get more than 5 per cent.?

Mr. Stanley: I understand that the price is still about 10s. over that of 1936, but that it has fallen from the high level of 1937.

WAR MATERIAL (EXPORT LICENCES).

Mr. Day: asked the President of the Board of Trade particulars of the undertakings received from foreign countries to which licences are granted for the export of mines, torpedoes and depth charges, and/or any kind of under-water weapons, to ensure that the same shall not be re-exported to countries that may be at war?

Mr. Stanley: I would refer the hon. Member to my answer on 15th March last in reply to the hon. Member for Shore-ditch (Mr. Thurtle), of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. Day: Can the Minister say whether full inquiries are made as to the ultimate

Statement showing the total declared value of exports of the undermentioned commodities from the United Kingdom to Germany and Italy, respectively, in each of the years 1936 and 1937.


Description.
Consigned to Germany.
Consigned to Italy.


1936.
1937.
1936.
1937.




£000.
£000.
£000.
£000.


Exports of United Kingdom goods: Cotton waste, unmanufactured
…
312
303
3
29


Exports of imported merchandise: Raw cotton (except linters)
…
293
426
6
12


Cotton waste, unmanufactured
…
7
43
—
—

Mr. Tomlinson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to say whether, and when, he proposes to introduce an Enabling Bill for the cotton industry?

Mr. Chorlton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the agreed terms of the cotton organisations having been sent to him, he can now say when the Enabling Bill for that industry will be submitted to this House?

Mr. Stanley: I understand that a revised, and, it is hoped, final form of the proposals will be considered by the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations this week. I hope I shall then be in a position to give final instructions for the completion of a draft Bill, with which those affected will have an opportunity of expressing their agreement and which the

destinations of these vessels before licences are granted?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir.

COTTON INDUSTRY.

Mr. Day: asked the President of the Board of Trade the declared value of raw cotton and unmanufactured cotton-waste exported from the United Kingdom for the two years ended the last convenient date and registered during that period as consigned to Germany and Italy?

Mr. Stanley: As the answer involves a table of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Day: Is it not a fact that they have increased 10 or 12 times since 1933?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir.

Following is the answer:

Government would then be prepared to put before Parliament.

Mr. Petherick: Before bringing in such a Bill, would my right hon. Friend bear in mind the unlamented decease of the Milk Bill?

Mr. Stanley: It does not seem to be at all relevant. One Bill deals with milk, and the other with cotton.

Mr. A. V. Alexander: Will there be an opportunity for those interests concerned with the Bill and not on the committee to have a sight of the draft Bill before it is adopted by Parliament?

Mr. Stanley: The intention is to circulate, not the draft Bill, but suggested Clauses of the Bill, at the earliest possible date, in order to enable the industries


to express formal disagreement or agreement, and to enable any other interests to submit their views to the Board of Trade.

Mr. De la Bère: Is this not to be a further example of rationalisation?

Mr. Sutcliffe: Will my right hon. Friend do his best to see that this legislation has an early place?

Sir Nairne Stewart Sandeman: Will this be an agreed Measure?

Mr. Stanley: I am afraid it is a Lancashire Bill, and it is rather early to expect an agreed Measure.

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has considered the resolution adopted at a meeting of members of the Cotton Yarn Price Agreement held in Manchester on 6th December, 1938, requesting His Majesty's Government to interest itself more keenly in the problems of the Lancashire textile industry; and whether he has any observations to make on this matter?

Mr. Stanley: I cannot accept the implication that His Majesty's Government has not taken the keenest interest in the problems of the Lancashire textile industry. As regards export markets, the resolution to which the hon. Member refers disregards the action which has been taken in connection with quotas imposed in the colonies on foreign cotton piece-goods, the Trade Agreements con-chided with the Dominions, and the Trade Agreement just concluded with the United States. In addition I am answering questions to-day by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke) on the negotiations -with India and by the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Kerr) on other trade negotiations in prospect. With regard to proposals for the reorganisation of the cotton industry, I would refer to the answer I have just given to the hon. Members for Farnworth (Mr. Tomlinson) and Bury (Mr. Chorlton).

Mr. Davies: Is it not the fact that, in spite of all that the right hon. Gentleman and his Government have been trying to do, this industry is still declining?

Mr. Stanley: After considerable improvement last year, it is quite true that

during the last months the industry has been going through a bad period, and I hope that some of the measures now proposed will assist the industry to emerge from it.

Mr. Levy: Is it not true to say that the decline is outside the control either of the industry or of the Department concerned?

Mr. Hamilton Kerr: asked the President of the Board of Trade what trade agreements are now under negotiation or contemplation which may bring benefit of any kind to the cotton textile trade?

Mr. Stanley: Negotiations are proceeding with India, Burma and Switzerland for new or revised trade agreements: with Chile, for a new Commercial Treaty, and with Colombia, for a Commercial Treaty to replace the existing treaty, which the Colombian Government have given notice to terminate. I cannot at present say how far these various negotiations are likely to bring benefit to the cotton industry, but this is an object which His Majesty's Government are keeping well in mind in these, as in all other negotiations.

Mr. Kerr: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the South American countries purchase a certain number of Japanese cotton goods but sell very little in return to Japan?

Mr. Kerr: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give an assurance that the Government are prepared to give financial or other assistance to the cotton export trade of this country, in order to enable it to meet recently developed forms of foreign competition, provided that the industry is so organised that Government assistance can be given to it as a unit?

Mr. Stanley: The proposals for the reorganisation of the cotton industry which are being put forward by the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations will contain various provisions designed to assist the export trade and also provide for financial assistance being available to the industry for certain purposes from Exchequer funds. As I said in reply to the hon. Members for Farnworth (Mr. Tomlinson) and Bury (Mr. Chorlton), the final form of these proposals will receive urgent consideration by the Government.

Mr. Kerr: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in connection with the recent bulk purchases of wheat


from Rumania, any suggestion was made to Rumania that she should arrange in return to increase her imports of British textile goods; and whether he can give an assurance that whenever any further bulk purchases are made, consideration will be given to the desirability of obtaining some compensatory advantage for the British cotton textile industry?

Mr. Stanley: Under the terms of the Anglo-Rumanian Payments Agreement of 2nd September, 1938, which was issued as a Command Paper (Cmd. 5840), the effect of the purchase referred to is to increase considerably the amount of exchange available to pay for Rumanian imports of United Kingdom textiles and other goods.

Commodity.
Applicants.
Result.


(a) Applications for increase of duty.


Cotton fabric gloves
Joint Industrial Council for the Glove Making Industries, and the Association of Fabric Glove Manufacturers.
Additional Import Duties (No. 8) Order, 1933.


Lace and Embroidery
Federation of Lace and Embroidery Employers' Associations
Additional Import Duties (No. 13) Order, 1933.



Handkerchief and Embroidery Association.



Bleached Cotton Linters
Bleachers' Association, Limited
Additional Import Duties (No. 18) Order, 1933.


Elastic Cords, etc.
British Federation of Elastic Web Manufacturers.
Additional Import Duties (No. 7) Order, 1935.


Bootlaces
British Federation of Textile Smallwares Manufacturers.
Additional Import Duties (No. 2 1) Order, 1935.


Certain Plaited Tubular Braids
Insulated Sleeving Manufacturers' Association.
No recommendation made.


Oil-baize and other Oil-cloth
Association of British Oil Baize and Leather Cloth Manufacturers.
Additional Import Duties (No. 30) Order, 1935.


Cut weft pile fabrics
Ad hoc Committee of Velvet Manufacturers.
Additional Import Duties (Nos. 17 and 20) Orders, 1936. Additional Import Duties (No. 12) Order, 1937.


Cut weft and cut warp pile fabrics in small pieces.
Ad hoc Committee of Velvet Manufacturers.
No recommendation made.


Flags of any country in the British Empire, and flags resembling them and other articles suitable for use in connection with the coronation.
Cotton Spinners' and Manufacturers' Association.
Additional Import Duties (No. 30) Order, 1936.


Handkerchiefs
Ad hoc Committee of Manchester Cotton Handkerchief Manufacturers.
Additional Import Duties (No. 3) Order, 1938.

Mr. Tomlinson: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what representations have been made by any section of the cotton trade to the Import Duties Advisory Committee; by whom; and with what result?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Euan Wallace): I presume the hon. Member is referring to representations for changes in duties. The practice of the Import Duties Advisory Committee is not to disclose what applications are before them until a stage is reached at which other interests besides those of the applicants require to be considered, when the case is advertised. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of advertised applications made by organisations related with the cotton trade.

Following is the list:

Commodity.
Applicants.
Result.


(b) Applications for removal of duty.


Gum arabic
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 8) Order, 1933.


Sumac leaf
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 8) Order, 1934, and Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 12) Order, 1937.


Gum tragacanth
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 8) Order, 1934.


Persian berries
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers. Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 8) Order, 1934.


Quercitron Bark Extract
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 8) Order, 1934.


Cassava (tapioca flour)
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 1) Order, 1935.


Farina
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 1) Order, 1935.


Wheat starch
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
No recommendation made.


Dextrine (farina)
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
No recommendation made.


Magnesium sulphate
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
No recommendation made.


Oxalic acid
…
…
Allied Association of Bleachers, Dyers, Printers and Finishers.
Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. I) Order, 1936—subsequently became chargeable with Key Industry Duty.

CALCIUM CARBIDE (IMPORTS).

Mr. Sexton: asked the President of the Board of Trade the total weight and total value of calcium carbide imported into the United Kingdom for each of the last three years?

Mr. Stanley: In 1935, 1,105,000 cwts. of calcium carbide, valued at £606,000, were imported into the United Kingdom; in 1936, 1,112,000 cwts., valued at £613,000; and in 1937, 1,270,000 cwts., valued at £690,000.

Mr. Sexton: Realising that the raw materials for the manufacture of calcium carbide exist in abundance in Durham and South Wales, and that the manpower is there waiting the opportunity to work, are not the Government prepared to do something to set up manufacture in this country?

Mr. Stanley: We have made repeated efforts to set up manufacture in this country, but they have not met with the approval of this House.

INDIA (TRADE AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS).

Mr. Burke: asked the President of the Board of Trade the present position regarding the negotiations between the United Kingdom and India on the question of the import duties placed upon

cotton goods exported from this country to India?

Mr. Stanley: It was stated in the Indian Assembly on 5th December that the Ottawa Agreement would not be continued beyond the next Budget Session of the Assembly. This decision does not imply any breakdown in the negotiations and, as stated in the answer I gave to my hon. and gallant Friends, the Members for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) and Accrington (Major Procter) on 22nd November, the whole matter is at the moment under the consideration of the Government of India.

Mr. Burke: Has the right hon. Gentleman any idea when I might put the question down again?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir; I am afraid not. We are waiting until we receive notification of the decision of the Indian Government.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise the need for an early decision on this matter, in view of the denunciation of the Ottawa Agreement by India?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir, I am only too anxious to have an early decision if possible.

EXPORT TRADE.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he, or any other Minister will visit foreign countries in the near future for the purpose of trade negotiations or the investigation of possibilities of increasing British export trade?

Mr. Stanley: His Majesty's Government make constant use of the existing machinery for surveying oversea markets with a view to the creation of new openings for United Kingdom export trade and the widening of existing outlets. As part of this machinery Ministerial tours of foreign countries, whether formal or informal, are undertaken when desirable. No such arrangements are at present under contemplation.

Mr. Bellenger: Has the right hon. Gentleman noted the success which has attended the commercial travels of another trade minister abroad; and does he not, therefore, think that the time has arrived when more energetic action should be taken by his Department to increase the British export trade?

Mr. Stanley: I hope that the action taken by my Department will not only be energetic but appropriate. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that the minister to whom he refers, being the minister for commerce in a totalitarian State, is in a rather different position from that of the President of the Board of Trade in this country.

PREPARED PLATE GLASS (IMPORTS).

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the President of the Board of Trade the value of prepared plate glass imported during the first six months of 1937 and of 1938, respectively?

Mr. Stanley: Imports into the United Kingdom of prepared plate glass, including glass shelves, etc., as well as bevelled or silvered plate glass, were valued at £143,000 during the first six months of 1937 and at £126,000 in the corresponding period of 1938.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCANTILE MARINE.

GOVERNMENT CARGOES.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to ensure that

while British shipping is finding it difficult to obtain freights, cargoes ordered or bought for the British Government shall be carried in British bottoms?

Mr. Stanley: As I have stated before in reply to questions in the House, it is the rule that only in exceptional conditions are ships other than British to be used for carrying Government cargoes.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Is it the view of the right hon. Gentleman that, if cargoes bought on Government account are carried in foreign bottoms, that is because British shipowners have had the chance of obtaining the charter and have not availed themselves of it?

Mr. Stanley: That was the case with regard to the Rumanian wheat, but it would be unfair not to point out that in many cases, although preferential rates were offered, owing to the fact that the British-owned ships were inconveniently placed, or were laid up, it would not have been economic for them to undertake just this one specific voyage.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Does what I said in my supplementary question apply generally, and not only in the case of the Rumanian wheat?

Mr. Stanley: As far as I am aware, there has been no other case, certainly this year, in which any other than a British ship has been chartered.

ITALIAN COMPETITION.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the announcement that 44 fast ships are to be built for the Italian mercantile marine by 1941; that 37 of these vessels are designed for rapid cargo carrying while seven are to operate as passenger liners; that the ships are to be employed on almost all the recognised trade routes of the world; and whether he has any statement to make on the matter, having regard to the competition to which British shipping is already subjected?

Mr. Stanley: I have seen reports of the plans for the construction of vessels for the Italian merchant fleet, to which the hon. Member refers. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative, but I have no doubt that these developments will be taken into account in the comprehensive investigation which


the shipowners' organisations are now making into the position of the shipping industry in relation to foreign competition.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information as to whether these vessels are armed?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman could get the information if he put the question down to the appropriate Ministry.

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Mr. Benjamin Smith: asked the President of the Board of Trade what action he is considering to prevent the laying-up of merchant shipping, in view of the fact that the interests of national defence and trade demand an augmented Mercantile Marine with an increased personnel?

Mr. Stanley: As the hon. Member is aware, I am awaiting a report from the shipowners' organisations on the position of the British shipping industry in relation to foreign competition. As soon as I have received the proposals of the shipping industry I shall consider them with a view to improving the competitive position of British shipping.

Mr. Smith: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when he expects the report from this body?

Mr. Stanley: I cannot say when, but I understand they are making very satisfactory progress.

Commander Marsden: In order to assist British shipping, will my right hon. Friend consider, when chartering ships for Government cargoes, offering rates which will be economic for British shipping?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir. I will do as I have done before, and consider offering them preferential rates, but no one could defend the action of the Government in offering British shipowners any rate that they choose to ask.

COASTAL SHIPPING (REGISTER).

Mr. Benjamin Smith: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether a register of British coastal shipping has been compiled; and whether, before agreeing to any scheme for the reconditioning or augmentation of the coastal shipping

service, he will undertake to consult trade union representatives of the men engaged in the service?

Mr. Stanley: A register of British coastal shipping has been prepared for emergency purposes. As I have previously stated, the position of the shipping industry is the subject of an inquiry by the shipowners' organisations at the present time. If the seamen's organisations concerned with coastal shipping desire to submit a report to me on the question, I shall be glad to consider it.

Mr. Smith: Do the terms of reference embrace coastal shipping?

Mr. Stanley: I understand so. There are no formal terms of reference, but I understand that one section of the inquiry will be devoted to it.

DUTCH-BUILT SHIPS.

Commander Marsden: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take steps to ensure that ships built in Holland for British owners will pay a tariff duty on arrival in United Kingdom ports?

Mr. Stanley: Ships coming here in the way of trade as actual or prospective carriers of goods or passengers overseas are not regarded as goods liable to duty, but ships which are being added to the commodities of this country would be so regarded. I do not consider that the imposition of a duty on all ships built abroad for British owners would be either practicable or desirable.

Commander Marsden: In which class would my right hon. Friend place a ship which is built by the Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society?

Mr. Stanley: I have not any idea of the character of the ship which is being built. Unless it is something in the nature of a river tug, it is probably for the carriage of goods.

Viscountess Astor: Will my right hon. Friend see that the men on the ship will not have to belong to the Labour party before they get a job?

Mr. L. Smith: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the steel plates, of which a great many of these ships that are coming from Holland are made, are free of duty when they come in ships,


and that they would have to pay a duty otherwise; and is not this a way in which duties are being avoided?

Mr. Stanley: Now that the price of steel plates has been reduced for the next six months, there will be less incentive to do that.

Mr. Thorne: Would not the shipbuilders in this country be worse off if they were to retaliate on other countries?

INSURANCE.

Mr. Day: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that the majority of foreign countries demand heavy deposits from insurance companies of other nationalities established in their countries to transact insurance business, he will consider introducing legislation adopting similar principles in Great Britain?

Mr. Stanley: The countries which impose onerous conditions on the operations of British insurance companies are not, in general, those whose nationals are engaged in insurance business in this country. The proposed action would, therefore, be inappropriate, and to impose larger deposits on all companies operating in the United Kingdom would be contrary to the recommendations on the subject of deposits made by the Departmental Committee on the Assurance Companies Act, 1909, which reported in 1927, and to those of the Departmental Committee on Compulsory Insurance, which reported in 1937.

Mr. Day: Is it not a fact that most of the foreign countries impose these deposits?

Mr. Stanley: Yes; many of the foreign countries impose these deposits.

SEA FISH INDUSTRY ACT, 1938.

Mr. Adamson: asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of trawler owners who have received the approval of his Department to some alternative method of making the net value account available for inspection by any member of the crew under Part IV of the Sea Fish Industry Act, 1938?

Mr. Stanley: No application has been received for the Board of Trade's

approval of any alternative method of making the net value account available for inspection by members of the crew.

Mr. Adamson: Are they unanimous in accepting?

Mr. Stanley: There have been no objections so far, although I understand that at a later stage some objections may be made.

COMPANY LAW.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is his intention to set up a committee at an early date to inquire into the working of the present company law?

Mr. Stanley: I think that it would be desirable to defer an inquiry into the working of the present company law at least until the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Bill has been enacted and some experience has been gained of its working.

Mr. Bellenger: May we take that answer to mean that the right hon. Gentleman gives an undertaking that, when that Bill has been passed into law, an inquiry will be set in motion?

Mr. Stanley: I added that we had better wait until more experience had been gained of its working.

Mr. Bellenger: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the Motion which was passed by this House nearly a year ago which the Government accepted deeming it to be wise to start this inquiry at soon as possible?

Mr. Stanley: I think it will be as soon as possible.

Mr. R. C. Morrison: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that it will take three years from the time of the setting up of the inquiry before it is in a position to report, and that meanwhile there are some flaws in the present law?

Mr. Stanley: I am aware of the desire of hon. Members in all parts of the House, and I will certainly press on with this inquiry as soon as practicable, but the hon. Member will realise that we have been busily engaged for some months on the Prevention of Fraud Bill, but we still have before us the extremely important Bill dealing with certain aspects of the insurance law which we should like


to pass as soon as possible, and these company problems are, on the whole, less urgent than those two with which we are now dealing.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

OFFICERS EMERGENCY RESERVE.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that members of the Officers Emergency Reserve are given monetary grants to cover travelling and messing expenses when attending 14 days' training courses with anti-aircraft units, but that members are expected to meet all such expenses out of their own pockets when attending courses with other units, such as the Corps of Military Police; why this distinction is made; and whether, in order to encourage keenness and efficiency in all branches of the service, he will consider extending the offer of expenses grants for all approved training courses undertaken voluntarily by members of the Officers Emergency Reserve?

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hore-Belisha): The training at public expense of officers of the Emergency Reserve affiliated to anti-aircraft units was specially approved because of the degree of readiness which is required of them. I will consider the proposals made.

MARRIAGE ALLOWANCES.

Mr. Poole: asked the Secretary of State for War how many married members of the forces were not in receipt of married allowances at the last convenient date?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: On 1st April, 1938. there were some 5,000 soldiers.

Mr. Poole: In view of this large number and the fact that many of the dependants of these soldiers are now a charge upon the public assistance authorities, will not the Minister consider lowering the age at which these men will go on to the married pay roll?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of the wives of these married soldiers are in receipt of public assistance?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Speaker: He cannot do so without notice.

Mr. Poole: I am asking whether the right hon. Gentleman will consider that aspect of the case, and surely he can say "Yes" or "No."

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir, I am always ready to consider any proposal that is made, but the hon. Gentleman is well aware of the argument.

MARRIED OUARTERS, LICHFIELD BARRACKS.

Mr. Poole: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the whole of the married quarters accommodation at Lich-field Barracks is owned by his Department; if not, who are the owners; and what charge is made for this accommodation?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The married quarters accommodation at Lichfield is owned by the War Department, with the exception of 3o married soldiers' quarters which are hired from the Commercial Union Assurance Company, Limited, at a rental of £249 a year.

Mr. Poole: Would it be correct to assume that those who occupy these quarters are called upon to pay a rental of 17s. 6d. a week, and does the right hon. Gentleman not think that this is an imposition upon the soldiers who are called upon to make this payment, and that it results in very great hardship; and will he consider getting suitable accommodation under the control of his Department and making it available for people to occupy them at a reasonable rental?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I cannot accept those figures without notice, but if the hon. Member has any matter to which he wishes to draw my attention in connection with these lodgings, I shall be very happy if he will communicate with me.

Mr. Attlee: Does not the question simply ask what is the charge for accommodation and not what charge is made for the whole of these buildings?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: If I had so understood it I should have answered that.

LIGHT HORSE BREEDING.

Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew: asked the Secretary of State for War


whether the War Office grant for light-horse breeding will be continued next year at the same figure as has been given since 1934?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: There would appear to be no military justification for a further grant from Army funds.

Sir C. MacAndrew: In view of the fact that the Racecourse Betting Control Board is spending enormous sums of money, and in view of the urgency of the problem, does my right hon. Friend not think that light horse breeding would be much better discussed before Christmas rather than pensions for Members of Parliament?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The Control Board has been making increased grants, and so also has the Army.

Sir C. MacAndrew: Does my right hon. Friend not realise that the Racecourse Betting Control Board have had to increase their grants because he has been putting grants down?

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the rearing of light horses is more important than the wellbeing of the widows and wives of soldiers?

TERRITORIAL ARMY (TRAINING).

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Secretary of State for War whether in order to encourage recruiting in the Territorial Army and, in particular, to enable ex-service men to satisfy their desire to serve their country at this time, he will consider the further dispersion of Territorial battalions so that units may be established in all suitable towns, thus avoiding long journeys to attend drills; and whether, in order to suit the convenience of summer resorts, he will examine the possibility of holding annual training camps during the autumn months and billeting the men in halls rather than in tents?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The majority of units of the Territorial Army have already been dispersed to the fullest extent compatible with training efficiency. The Territorial Army necessarily go to camp during the summer months in which the maximum of training can be obtained and the men can best be spared from their civil employment, and living in camp forms a valuable part of the training of every soldier.

Mr. Stewart: Will my right hon. Friend consider the case of the minority of the Territorial battalions where the conditions set out in my question undoubtedly apply, and is he aware that without some change in the position of that minority he is actually discouraging many entrants for the Territorial Army?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: If the hon. Member is referring to some particular unit and he will communicate with me, I shall be most happy to go into the matter.

RECRUITS, WEST HAM.

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War the number of persons medically examined for the Army in the county borough of West Ham during 1937 and 1938, and the number rejected as medically unfit?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I regret that separate figures for the county borough of West Ham are not available.

WAR DEPARTMENT EMPLOYÉS, BATH.

Mr. J. Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the application for financial assistance towards the erection of a recreation centre for war department employés at Bath; and what were the grounds given for the application, and the nature of his reply?

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information in connection with the refusal of the War Office to make a grant towards providing a social centre in Bath for Government workers?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The War Department has provided a recreation centre and three welfare officers for its employés at Corsham, and some part of their daily travelling expenses in addition. These advantages have been highly appreciated by the men's representatives. The Mayor of Bath has complained that those of the Corsham employés who live in his borough are obliged to walk about the streets, and that there has been increasing drunkenness. These general charges are very much resented and, in so far as they are due to the lack of proper housing conditions and facilities for recreation in Bath, I sincerely hope that steps will be taken to improve the conditions. I have informed the Mayor that I shall be interested to hear of the outcome of his efforts.

Mr. Morgan: Does not the bulk of the War Department's employés who work at Corsham migrate to Bath for residence, and has the right hon. Gentleman made any practical suggestions to the city of Bath for dealing with the recreation problem affecting his employés in Bath?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: There has been correspondence with the Mayor of Bath and I have made certain suggestions to him.

Mr. Morgan: Did the right hon. Gentleman suggest that they should apply to the "Keep Fit" fund, knowing perfectly well that they are not in a position to make grants to temporary employés?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I should not have made a proposal if I knew that it was not practicable. The Mayor of Bath made that proposal to me.

Mr. Thorne: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that a soldier is as temperate as the Mayor of Bath?

Mr. Guinness: Will my right hon. Friend communicate with me before he goes any further in this matter?

REFUGEES.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement as to the present position of the absorption of Jewish refugees; whether as, with the exception of Australia, the Dominions have undertaken little, it is his intention again to make an appeal to them; and whether he is aware that the area suggested in British Guiana is totally unsuitable climatically for such immigration?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): It is not possible to give any accurate figures for the absorption of Jewish refugees in countries of refuge and settlement. In August last it was estimated by the High Commissioner of the League of Nations for Refugees that roughly 120,000 refugees from Germany of all categories had reached countries of permanent settlement. It may be assumed that several thousand more have done so in the last few months. As regards the second part of the question, the answer is in the negative, since the admission of refugees into any Dominion is a matter for the Dominion Government concerned,

but recent statements by Dominion Ministers indicate that they are fully alive to the importance and urgency of the question. With regard to the third part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to a question by the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Leach) on 28th November.

Mr. Adams: Does the Prime Minister not think it desirable to approach the Dominions again in view of the fact that we have already done so?

The Prime Minister: I think the fact that we have already done so makes it unnecessary to do so again.

Sir Arthur Salter: Will the Prime Minister consider the possibility of making a practical reality of the offer of British Guiana by appointing a suitable person to make a definite and detailed scheme for refugee emigrants into that Colony, including financial provision?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member knows that an offer has been made that someone on behalf of the refugees should go to British Guiana to see whether the country is suitable. That, surely, will be the first thing to do, and then migration of refugees might come afterwards.

Sir A. Salter: If I send the Prime Minister certain considerations showing how greatly the chances would be facilitated if someone appointed by the British Government were really made responsible for drawing out a definite scheme, will he consider the matter?

The Prime Minister: I should be much obliged to the hon. Member if he would send me the scheme he has in mind.

Viscountess Astor: Has anyone asked whether Russia would help with this question of refugees? Is it true that no offer has come from them to help in any way?

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is the Prime Minister aware that the organisations dealing with refugees in Great Britain are very anxious that His Majesty's Government should at an early date make a declaration of policy, as their work is being greatly hampered by the absence of such a statement?

The Prime Minister: I do not know what the hon. Member means. A full statement has been made.

Mr. Lathan: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the creation of a new Department forrefugees, combining the duties now imposed on the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Labour in this connection?

The Prime Minister: I see no need for the creation of the new Department suggested by the hon. Member.

Mr. Lathan: Does not the Prime Minister realise the magnitude of the problems which confront us in regard to refugees, and does he not also realise that, despite the utmost efforts of the particular Departments concerned, there is inevitable waste and overlapping, and that from the point of view of efficiency and economy it would be desirable to have co-ordination?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I do not think so.

Mr. Buchanan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Department which is tackling this problem was not created for the purpose, and that the present staff is completely overworked? Will he not, therefore, consider some method to eliminate the waste of time which is now taking place?

The Prime Minister: I am not clear as to that, but I will make inquiries.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Will the Prime Minister consider the possibility of setting aside some part of England as a national home for the English?

COLONIES AND PROTECTORATES.

Mr. Sandys: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that His Majesty's Government will not enter into negotiations with any foreign Power regarding proposals for the relinquishment of British sovereignty or administration in respect of any British colonies, protectorates, or mandated territories, without previously obtaining the approval of the House of Commons?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the course of his speech in this House on Wednesday last.

Mr. Sandys: In view of the fact that the statement referred to by the Prime

Minister contains no undertaking that the Government will consult Parliament before as opposed to after entering into negotiations of this kind with a foreign Power, would not my right hon. Friend consider giving a more specific assurance?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I do not think I can undertake to do that.

SURTAX.

Sir Joseph Leech: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider giving in the 1939–40 and future issues of the Treasury's financial statement laid on Budget days the graduated poundage scales of the Surtax in such a form as to show the rates of Surtax plus the Super-surtax of 10 per cent. by which the graduated Surtax rates are augmented, in order that the total of each step of the Surtax rates in the may be more clearly seen?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon): The suggestion made by my hon. Friend will be borne in mind

FIDUCIARY ISSUE.

Mr. Price: asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of increased Government borrowing for Defence, he will consider a permanent increase in the fiduciary issue and consultation with the Bank of England authorities, with a view to increasing their holdings of Government securities to act as credit expansion to support the new loans?

Sir J. Simon: I do not think that this action is desirable. On the general question of the fiduciary issue I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 24th November to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Sir N. Grattan-Doyle).

Mr. Price: If some increase in the fiduciary issue is not made will there not be, in view of increased Government borrowing, a tendency to deflation before very long?

Sir J. Simon: These are technical matters, and as to the facts I would refer the hon. Member to the observations made by the right hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) on the Defence Loans Bill.

WESTMINSTER HOUSE SITE (GOVERNMENT CONSTITUTION).

Mr. Bossom: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is able to make any statement regarding the possibility of a contribution on the part of His Majesty's Government towards the acquisition of the Westminster House site and its preservation as an open space?

Sir J. Simon: Yes, Sir. In deference to representations which have been received from a number of quarters and recognising the advantages which would accrue from the preservation of the West-minister House site as an open space in perpetuity, the Government are ready to contribute up to a total of £100,000 towards the acquisition of the area in question. This sum would be inclusive of any grant made from the Road Fund towards the cost of a scheme for improving traffic facilities in the area and is promised on the condition that the local authorities and such other bodies as may be concerned will increase the contributions which they have already offered, or will secure further contributions, to the extent necessary to enable the total sum required to be subscribed. I must add that, in view of the exigencies of the present financial position, the contribution of £100,000 to which the Government have agreed is a maximum figure which is not in any case to be exceeded.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES' LOANS (INTEREST RATE).

Mr. E. J. Williams: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the excessive burden on local rates by high interest charges on public loans; and whether the Government proposes to take action to obtain relief for the local authorities?

Sir J. Simon: Local authorities in very many cases have been able to convert their loans to a lower rate of interest. Where that is impossible or not yet possible because the contract with the lender does not give the borrower an option to convert at present, the State cannot interfere.

Mr. Williams: Could not the Government take action in this matter comparable with the action they took in connection with the conversion of War Stock and thus help local authorities?

Sir J. Simon: I do not think the two cases are comparable, but if the hon. Member would like to discuss the matter with me I should be very glad to see him.

Miss Wilkinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that some local authorities particularly in the distressed areas are very poor? They had to borrow in 1920, and are still paying high rates of interest on the loans which they then borrowed.

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. Batey: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he proposes to take to remedy the anomaly which compels an aged couple to exist on 10s. per week?

Sir J. Simon: I presume that the hon. Member is referring to the fact that the wife of a contributory old age pensioner does not receive a pension until she herself reaches the age of 65. I would refer him to the statement on the subject made by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury during the Debate on 23rd November last.

Mr. Batey: The reference the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given me is to a statement by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the whole question of an increase in pensions. In my question I am drawing the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to one part of the problem, and the most important part. Are we to understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no sympathy whatever in trying to remedy it?

Sir J. Simon: No, the hon. Member must not understand that at all.

Mr. Batey: If we are not to understand that, will he not take some steps to remedy this small anomaly?

Sir J. Simon: I am afraid that I cannot add to the statement my right hon. and gallant Friend made the other day.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that there is a growing demand in all parties of the House that an end should be put to the anomaly of the wife having to seek public assistance?

Mr. Gallacher: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that he will have to deal with this question sooner or later, and that he had better do so sooner?

SPINSTERS' PENSIONS.

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when the Committee on Spinsters' Pensions is likely to issue its report?

Captain Wallace: I am informed that the report of this committee is in course of preparation, but I am not yet in a position to say when it will be issued.

INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE.

Mr. Cluse: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in the absence of legislation, he can give particulars of the steps being taken by the Industrial Assurance Commissioner, to correct the abuses referred to in the Cohen Report?

Captain Wallace: Under the Industrial Assurance Act, 1923, the Industrial Assurance Commissioner is invested with certain powers, including the power to prosecute or to appoint an inspector, in order to secure the observance of the law relating to industrial assurance, and of these powers he makes effective use. In this connection I would refer the hon. Member to paragraph 68 of the Cohen Report.

Mr. Garro Jones: How often is the Industrial Commissioner going to prosecute the Prudential Assurance Company if he is to be made a director of it when he retires?

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

SCOTTISH ART EXHIBITION, LONDON.

Mr. T. Johnston: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the exhibition of Scottish art being arranged in London by the Royal Academy; and whether he can say whether every facility has been given by the National Galleries and the municipal galleries in Scotland for the lending of such works of art as may be required for the purposes of the exhibition?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Colville): Yes, Sir. The Exhibition of Scottish Art to be held by the Royal Academy at Burlington House from January to March next will, I am informed, be a comprehensive one and will provide a unique opportunity of studying the achievements of Scottish Artists

through the last three centuries. I am glad to have this opportunity of stating that the Executive Committee is assured of the fullest co-operation and assistance of the National and Municipal Galleries and of private owners in Scotland in the loan of works of art. Valuable contributions will also be made by the National Galleries in London, by municipal galleries in England and from many private sources.

SMALL HOLDINGS, SHETLAND.

Major Neven-Spence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether a decision has yet been reached on the question of providing small holdings and enlargements in Bressay, in the county of Shetland?

Mr. Colville: After full consideration of this question I have reached the conclusion that, at the moment, the circumstances do not warrant the initiation of a scheme for land settlement in the area referred to. I am hopeful, however, that the landlord will arrange, as opportunity offers, for the satisfaction of applications for holdings and enlargements, as he has done in the past.

Mr. Leslie: Is the Secretary of State aware that the son of the farmer whose land is under consideration was sent to investigate and report, and is it on his report, which has been made after two years have passed, that he has based his decision?

Mr. Colville: I have had the question re-examined in the last month, and I have come to the conclusion I have stated.

Mr. Davidson: Does the power to allocate smallholdings still remain in the hands of this farmer's son?

Mr. Colville: The hon. Member is wrong in his premises.

ZETLAND (CHIEF CONSTABLE).

Major Neven-Spence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether a decision has yet been reached on the question of whether the County of Shetland is to share a chief constable with another county or have one of its own?

Mr. Colville: Yes, Sir. I am prepared to approve the appointment of a separate chief constable for the County of Zetland. The county council were so informed on 30th November.

FISHERY PROTECTION CRUISER, ORKNEY WATERS.

Major Neven-Spence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether a decision has yet been reached on the question of the months of the year during which a fishery protection cruiser is to be stationed in Orkney waters?

Mr. Colville: The patrol of Orkney waters is carried out throughout the year by the fishery cruiser "Norna" based on Stromness. It is proposed, in addition, to continue during the present winter the use of the drifter which is at present on duty in the area. The question of future arrangements is still under consideration.

BUILDING CONSTUCTION (MATERIALS).

Mr. Johnston: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the ducts for underground service in the Lennox Castle works of the Glasgow Corporation are built of reinforced concrete; and why it is considered necessary to construct similar works of brick at the Hillington Industrial Estate?

Mr. Colville: I am informed that the use of concrete for the Lennox Castle ducts was rendered necessary by the nature of the ground. In the case of the Hillington Industrial Estate I am informed that the underground ducts are constructed partly of brick and partly of concrete and that this method of construction was regarded by the technical advisers of the estates company as the most satisfactory for the particular requirements.

Mr. Johnston: In view of the shortage of bricklayers for housing schemes in Glasgow and the neighbourhood, would it not have been desirable in this instance that the admirable example of Lennox Castle should have been followed at Hillington?

Mr. Colville: I did bear in mind the shortage of bricks and labour in my representations to the company, but their technical advisers in this particular instance advised in the sense I have indicated.

Mr. Johnston: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can give, approximately, the number of bricks absorbed and the bricklayers employed on the Hillington Industrial Estate since its inception; and whether he can give any

reason why the factories there constructed on the unit system have not been built of poured concrete, with a view to the release of labour for house construction in Glasgow and elsewhere in the neighbour-hood?

Mr. Colville: I am informed that an average of 50 bricklayers have been employed at the Hillington Industrial Estate since building operations commenced in June, 1937, and that about 6¼ million bricks have been laid. I am further informed that the question of using poured concrete was carefully considered by the Estates Company but that their technical advisers took the view that owing to the scale of construction and the degree of insulation required the use of bricks was preferable.

Mr. Johnston: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that poured concrete is being used for building houses for the working classes, and that it might have been desirable that this industrial estate should have been built of poured concrete in order to release the necessary bricks and bricklayers for housebuilding?

Mr. Colville: I am advised that the use of poured concrete construction presents greater difficulties in the case of factory construction than in the case of house-building, but I will bear in mind what the right hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Leonard: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that the industries housed at Hillington can proceed with their operations in poured concrete factories all over the country?

BARLEY SUBSIDY.

Sir Malcolm Barclay-Harvey: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the arrangement announced by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries for an additional payment for barley of the 1938 crop applies to Scotland; and if so whether he can state the approximate proportion of the additional payment which will accrue to barley growers in Scotland?

Mr. Colville: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, about a quarter of the total acreage of barley at present qualifying for subsidy is in Scotland. As the total figure is about 200,000 acres, a quarter would represent 50,000


acres. As my hon. Friend is aware, however, a further opportunity is to be given to growers to change over from the wheat subsidy to oats and barley, and it has been roughly estimated that this may double the present acreage. If the proportion were the same as in the case of the acreage at present qualifying, Scotland would receive about a quarter of the additional payments.

Mr. J. Morgan: May I ask whether those farmers who have taken advantage of the advance on their wheat quota will have the facility to return it if they desire and go on to the new barley quota?

Mr. Colville: I cannot answer that question without notice.

Sir Archibald Sinclair: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that this piecemeal handling of the agricultural situation is undesirable, and that we ought to have a full statement of the Government's agricultural policy in Scotland, including the oats farmers in particular?

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Can my right hon. Friend indicate when the proposal regarding oats will be announced?

Mr. Colville: No, Sir. I have answered specifically the question which my hon. Friend put to me by Private Notice. The right hon. Gentleman has widened the question considerably, and I am not prepared to give an answer to-day, except to say that no doubt he took notice of the statement made by the Minister of Agriculture last Friday.

Mr. Quibell: Will the right hon. Gentleman be able to announce the new policy when the next by-election takes place?

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

HOURS OF WORK (TEVERSAL COLLIERY, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE).

Mr. Charles Brown: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that a miner named Wilfred Hardy, employed at Teversal Colliery, Nottinghamshire, stated in evidence at the inquest on his two children who were burnt to death in a fire at his home at Sutton-in-Ashfield on the morning of 23rd November, that he left home for the pit at 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, 22nd November, and did not return till 8 a.m. on the morning of 23rd

November because he had to work overtime; and will he inquire and inform the House why the man had to work such abnormally long hours at this colliery?

The Secretary for Mines (Captain Crookshank): The information at my disposal approximately confirms that given by the hon. Member as to the hours worked on the night of the 22nd-23rd November by Wilfred Hardy, after making allowance for the fact that he lives four miles from the mine. I am considering whether the purposes for which he was retained in the pit fall within the exceptions allowed by the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908.

Mr. Brown: In view of the fact that charges which have frequently been made in connection with overtime have always been denied, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman re-examine the question of overtime work in the pits of Nottingham-shire?

Captain Crookshank: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Royal Commission are reporting on a variety of subjects. It may be that they have dealt with this question, although I do not know whether that is so; but we will see what they have to say first.

Mr. Brown: If the Royal Commission have not finished their work, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman ask them to deal with this matter?

Captain Crookshank: They have finished.

Mr. T. Williams: As this case has been brought to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's notice, will he insist upon his representative making further investigations into the matter?

Captain Crookshank: That is another question. Perhaps the hon. Member will study the reply I have given and its implications.

NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he has received a report on the experiment made in North Staffordshire, reported on page 12 of No. 5 North-Western Division, 1937, Reports of His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines; what are his Department's observations on the report; and is it intended to apply the methods universally if the experiment is a success?

Captain Crookshank: Yes, Sir. The experiment in dust suppression referred to in the report involves the shrouding of the turret-end of a coal-cutting machine used for overcutting a thick seam, and it has resulted in an appreciable reduction in the amount of dust dissipated. This method has only a limited application and is only one of a variety of methods for the suppression or removal of coal dust to meet different circumstances. The progress of these desirable and important developments is being closely watched and encouraged by my Department.

Mr. Smith: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of inspections made on behalf of the workmen in the North Staffordshire area under Section 16 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, during the years 1936, 1937, and 1938, respectively?

Captain Crookshank: The figures are nought, three and nought respectively.

Mr. Smith: asked the Secretary for Mines whether his attention has been directed to the 1937 Report by His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines, Northwestern Division, in particular to page 13, falls of roof and accidents in North Staffordshire, page 23, accidents, and page 29; and what action has been taken or is contemplated?

Captain Crookshank: The report shows that the accident rates from falls of ground and from the use of explosives are relatively higher in North Staffordshire than in the other coalfields of the Division. The main road to improvement is greater care and effort by all concerned and two additional inspectors have recently been appointed to strengthen the part played by inspection. As regards the three ignitions of firedamp referred to on page 29 of the report, I should point out that none of the three resulted in any personal injury, that all were of an unusual nature, and that no specific precaution likely to eliminate all such occurrences could be devised.

Mr. Smith: In view of the high percentage of falls, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman take a personal interest in this matter in order to get it remedied?

Mr. E. J. Williams: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that these falls are caused by the lack of good packing underground, and that if this were

remedied, it might be a contribution to the avoidance of subsidence?

Captain Crookshank: That may be so, but one must bear in mind the peculiar natural conditions of this part of the coalfield.

Oral Answers to Questions — SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (CHRISTMAS RECESS).

Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he can announce the dates of the Christmas Recess?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I hope that all necessary Business will be concluded so that the Motion for the Christmas Adjournment may be moved on Thursday, 22nd December. It is proposed that the House shall meet after the Recess on Tuesday, 31st January.
The Motion for the Adjournment will contain the usual provision empowering Mr. Speaker, on representations being made by the Government, to call the House together at an earlier date if such a course should appear necessary in the public interest.
I shall propose that the House do meet at II o'clock on Thursday and adjourn not later than 5 o'clock.

Mr. Mander: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider inserting some provision in the Motion which would enable the House itself, regardless of the wishes of the Government, to reassemble at an earlier date?

Mr. Gallacher: May we have from the Prime Minister a pledge that there will be no further betrayals of democracy during the Recess?

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR MOTIONS.

Ordered,
That, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 5, the ballot for Motions for Wednesday, 1st February, shall be taken on Wednesday, r4th December."—[The Prime Minister.]

Oral Answers to Questions — COMPANIES ACT (1929) AMENDMENT.

Captain Ramsay: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Companies Act, 1929, with respect to the holding of shares in news agencies. newspapers, and periodicals.


The relevant words are that in the case of news agencies, newspapers and periodicals, it shall be illegal for shares of any description to be registered in the names of nominees or otherwise than in the names of the actual shareholders, and there is a penalty attached of not less than £10 for every £1 share incorrectly registered thereafter. The object of this Bill is to prevent the manipulation and control of "news" for their own ends—I make no charges, but the Bill is to eliminate the risk, if there be one—by big finance, whether the group consists of British, foreign or international financiers.
I have been asked why the Bill is not more widely drawn and made applicable to all companies. The answer, in the first place, is that it is not intended to be discriminatory in any shape or form. Secondly, a precedent for this form of legislation already exists. It is an accepted principle that leaflets and pamphlets tending to influence and shape public opinion shall be traceable to their source, and if that principle applies to leaflets and pamphlets, how much more should it apply to our big daily newspapers and news agencies. Influencing public opinion cannot be done more effectually than by carefully editing the news, by selection, distortion, concealment or emphasis. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I make no charges but it is for this reason, because of this especial danger and because of the existing precedent that news agencies, newspapers and periodicals only are mentioned in this Bill.
In order to get some idea for the purpose of conveying it to the House as to whether there was any reasonable ground for suspicion that this kind of manipulation might be going on, I had the figures of the shareholdings of three news agencies looked up at Somerset House. I find that Reuters has an issue of £75,000 worth of share capital only, and £74,000 worth are held by the Press Association. The Press Association has an issue in£10 shares of 9,888 shares. They are held in numbers of blocks of 96 shares by various papers and combines and no holding thereafter is above 50 shares. Only one big block—over 10 per cent. of the whole issue of capital-is held by a company which calls itself the Press Association Share Purchase Company, which has a capital of only £100

with only seven £1 shares issued. There is one other agency, the Central News, which has an issue of 1,000 £20 shares or £20,000 capital, and 788 of these 1,000 shares are held in the names of two men. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who are they?"] They are bank officials and we cannot tell whom they represent. Of those shares, 592 were bought from New York in December last year and 200 were bought from another person in New York on the same date.
Again, without making any charges, I suggest to this House that these people who are only represented in the shareholding have the control. No matter who the directors may be, they have to do what they are told by those who have the money. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I assure my hon. Friends opposite that the public interests of this country in independent undiluted and unbiased news are as jealously guarded on this side of the House as on theirs, and the proof of it is that I am moving this Motion; nobody can attribute any Left views to me. May I repeat that this Bill is riot discriminatory in any way. It is confined to the report of the news in its various forms because the mishandling of news can be used in two ways both gravely affecting the public welfare—financial and political. We know that Consols fell to something like 55 during the crisis and have since recovered to about 74. Who could have made money out of that except the people who had the first news, and more especially who knew that bad news was about to be changed to goodnews? Secondly, it could be used for political ends. It could be used to thrust this country into a war. The British public have the right to know who controls this presentation of news and what influences are at work behind it. It is to achieve that end that this Bill is directed.

Mr. Storey: As I happen to be chairman of the principal home news agency and a director of the principal overseas and foreign news agency of this country, it may be convenient for the House if I state what are the facts of the ownership of British news agencies, because I am sure that the House will, when they know the facts, agree that my hon. and gallant Friend's proposals would be a piece of discriminatory legislation for which there is no justification. There are only four British news agencies—the Central News,


the Exchange Telegraph, the Press Association and Reuters, and, of these, the Central News is the only one which might justifiably arouse the curiosity of my hon. and gallant Friend as to the ultimate responsibility for the control of its shares, because, as he pointed out, the controlling shares are registered in the names of bank nominees. I am not at liberty to disclose the identity of the owners of those shares, but I can tell the House what is an open secret, that, recently, control was purchased by a group of persons interested in news agency work who were determined, though at heavy cost to themselves, that control of that British news agency should be regained from foreign hands, and that it should be saved from falling into the hands of any foreign news agency which might use it for the purpose of dumping news with a foreign bias into the British market, under the cover of British ownership. With the Exchange Telegraph, I need not take up the time of the House. It is an ordinary commercial company, and the ownership of its shares, and the identity of its shareholders, are clear.
I now come to the Press Association and Reuters. Here the facts are no secret, and have been many times clearly stated in public. They are that the control of both agencies is vested in the provincial newspapers of this country, which I claim, without fear of contradiction, represent the best traditions of British journalism. The business is run on a non-profit making basis, and the shares are held on terms which make it impossible for any individual to gain control which might be used for the furtherance of personal or political ends. The directors are all men of practical experience and proved ability in the industry. They are appointed on a demo

cratic basis, and, as directors they exercise full and unfettered responsibility for their actions. The present board includes men who are engaged in the production of such newspapers as the "Yorkshire Post," the "Manchester Guardian," the "Glasgow Herald," the "Belfast News-Letter" and the "Sheffield Telegraph," all papers of distinction but having such divergence of political views that their representatives could hardly co-operate in the production of news except of a strictly impartial character.

My hon. and gallant Friend raised the question of the Press Association Share Purchase Company. There need be no mystery about it. It plays no part whatever in the control of the Press Association, and owes its existence solely to the desire to prevent shares held by papers which cease publication, from falling into the hands of outside interests. Its business consists solely of the purchase of shares from papers which have ceased publication and selling them off when opportunity offers, to new newspapers which desire to qualify for membership of the Press Association. The facts I have stated are easily ascertainable and are, indeed, well known, and I submit that, whatever our views may be about shares being held by bank nominees, these facts provide no ground for singling out the news agencies for discriminatory legislation, I, therefore, ask the House to refuse leave to introduce the Bill.

Question put,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Companies Act, 1929, with respect to the holding of shares in news agencies, newspapers, and periodicals.

The House divided: Ayes, 151; Noes, 104.

Division No. 17.]
AYES.
[4.0 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Channon, H.
Errington, E.


Adamson, W. M.
Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)
Everard, W. L.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Muse, W. S.
Fildes, Sir H.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)
Fleming, E. L.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R
Conant, Captain R. J. E.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.


Banfield, J. W.
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Fremantle, Sir F. E.


Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Gardner, B. W.


Barnes, A. J.
Croft, Brig.-Gan. Sir H. Page
Garro Jones, G. M.


Barr, J.
Crooke, Sir J. Smedley
Gibson, Sir C. G. (Pudsey and Otley)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Crowder, J. F. E.
Goldie, N. B.


Bann, Rt. Hon. W. W.
Davies, R. J. (Westhaughton)
Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)


Blair, Sir R.
De la Bère, R.
Grant-Ferris, R.


Bossom, A. C.
Denman, Hon. R. D.
Granville, E. L.


Brooklebank, Sir Edmund
Duncan, J. A. L.
Grenfell, D. R.


Brooke, H. (Lewisham, W.)
Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Gratton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.


Buchanan, G.
Edward., A. (Middlesbrough E.)
Gridley, Sir A. B.


Bull, B. B.
Emery, J. F.
Constar, Capt. Sir D. W.




Hacking, Rt. Hon. Sir D. H.
MacNeill Weir, L.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.


Hannah, I. C.
Markham, S. F.
Simpson, F. B.


Harbord, A.
Marsden, Commander A.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Mathers, G.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees (K'ly)


Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Maxwell, Hon. S. A.
Smith, Sir Louis (Hallam)


Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Hepworth, J.
Mills, Sir F. (Layton, E.)
Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.


Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Milner, Major J.
Stephen, C.


Hicks, E. G.
Montague, F.
Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.


Higgs, W. F.
Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.
Sutcliffe, H.


Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Morgan, J. (York, W.R., Doncaster)
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)


Hunloke, H. P.
Morrison, G. A. (Soortish Univ's.)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.
Morrison, R. G. (Tottenham, N.)
Thomas, J. P. L.


Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Munro, P.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Neven-Stance, Major B. H. H.
Thorne, W.


Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Paling, W.
Tinker, J. J.


Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Parker, J.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Kirby, B. V.
Patrick, C. M.
Wakefield, W. W.


Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Price, M. P.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Rathbone, Elea[...]or (English Univ's.)
Watt, Major G. S. Harvie


Lancaster, Captain C. G.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.
Rayner, Major R. H.
Wells, Sir Sydney


Lathan, G.
Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)
Wilkinson, Ellen


Leech, Sir J. W.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Lees-Jones, J.
Riley, B.
Williams, T. (Don Valley)


Leonard, W.
Ritson, J.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Leslie, J. R.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Levy, T.
Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.
Young, A. S. L. (Particle)


Liddall, W. S.
Russell, Sir Alexander



Lipson, D. L.
Russell, R. J. (Eddiabery)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Logan, D. G.
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)
Captain Ramsay and Mr.


MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Sandeman, Sir N. S.
Bellenger.


Macnamara, Major J. R. J.
Scott, Lord William





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Poole, C. C.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Gluckstein, L. H.
Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton


Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Quibell, D. J. K.


Anderson. F. (Whitehaven)
Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)


Apsley, Lord
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Richards, R. (Wrexham)


Barrie, Sir C C.
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Ridley, G.


Batey, J.
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Rothschild, J. A. de


Benson, G.
Grigg, Sir E. W. M.
Sanders, W. S.


Bird, Sir R. B.
Groves, T. E.
Sandys, E. D.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Schuster, Sir G. E.


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Hardie, Agnes
Saxton. T. M.


Burke, W. A.
Harris, Sir P. A.
Shinwell, E.


Butcher, H. W.
Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Cape, T.
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Gartland. J. R. H.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Sorensen, R. W.


Clarry, Sir Reginald
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
John, W.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Collindridge, F.
Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)
Kirkwood, D.
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Cove, W. G.
Lawson, J. J.
Thurtle, E.


Cox, Trevor
Leach, W.
Tomlinson, G.


Critchley, A.
Lindsay, K. M.
Viant, S. P.


Daggar, G.
Lunn, W.
Watkins, F. C.


Dalton, H.
Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Watson, W. McL.


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
McGhee, H. G.
Westwood, J.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Mender, G. le M.
White, H. Graham


Dobbie, W.
Marshall, F.
Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)


Dower, Major A. V. G.
Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Ede, J. C.
Messer, F.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Woods, C. S. (Finsbury)


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.


Foot, D. M.
Peake, O.



Furness, S. N
Pearson, A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Fyfe, D. P. M.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Mr. Storey and Sir Edmund


Gallacher, W.
Pilkington, R.
FIndiay.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Captain Ramsay, Sir Robert Rankin, Sir Charles Cayzer, Mr. Erskine Hill, Captain Alan Graham, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Kingsley Griffith.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMPANIES ACT (1929) AMENDMENT BILL,

"to amend with Companies Act, 1929, with respect to the holding of shares agencies, newspapers, and


periodicals," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 49.]

Oral Answers to Questions — MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to,—

Glasgow Corporation Order Confirmation Bill.

Paisley Corporation (Cart Navigation) Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to the National Trust for Scotland. [National Trust for Scotland Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]

Average Number of Clerks and Salaried Persons employed at Coal Mines in each Colliery District of Great Britain for the years 1920 to 1928.



District.
1920–23.
1924.
1925.
1926.
1927.
1928.



England and Wales.








1.
Northumberland
Not available.
1,098
887
933
940
815


2.
Durham
4,144
2,145
2,203
2,147
2,138


3.
Cumberland and Westmorland
160
151
155
152
165


4.
Lancashire and Cheshire
1,910
1,947
1,940
1,925
1,828


5.
Yorkshire, South
2,180
2,211
2,357
2,391
2,321


6.
Yorkshire, West
1,434
1,474
1,503
1,425
1,369


7.
Nottinghamshire
869
954
945
1,044
957


8.
Derbyshire, North
978
948
969
1,021
969


9.
Derbyshire, South
117
127
129
125
114


10.
Staffordshire, North
705
641
656
621
611


11.
Cannock Chase
480
511
504
500
470


12.
South Staffs and Worcester
151
158
164
162
158


13.
Leicestershire
208
216
222
246
253


14.
Warwickshire
393
418
398
404
395


15.
Shropshire
73
81
80
79
78


16.
Forest of Dean
112
109
89
95
92


17.
Somerset
139
128
108
109
109


18.
Bristol
57
40
33
23
21


19.
Kent
74
58
71
76
81


20.
South Wales and Monmouth
4,26o
3,327
3,185
3,163
2,709


21.
North Wales
318
280
287
299
296



Total
19,860
16,811
16,931
16,947
15,949



Scotland.







22.
Fife and Clackmannan, Kinross and Sutherland
473
509
508
537
494


23.
Lothians (Mid. &amp; East) and Peebles
278
269
254
255
249


24.
Lanarkshire, West Lothian (Lin-lithgow), Stirling, Renfrew and
Dumbarton.
928
968
923
897
797


25.
Ayrshire, Dumfries and Argyll
201
248
239
244
239



Total
1.880
1,994
1,924
1,933
1,779



Great Britain
21,740
18,805
18,855
18,880
17,728

NOTES.—(1) For the year 1924 the particulars relate to those "ordinarily employed" and subsequently to the average number of clerks and salaried persons based upon four selected dates.

(2) In the year 1926 there was a protracted dispute and the figures relate to 13th March.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL TRUST FOR SCOTLAND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].

Ordered (under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 48.]

Orders of the Day — REORGANISATION OF OFFICES (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

4.10 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Colville): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This is a Bill which deals, not with policy in the broad sense, but with the machinery by which policy is administered. The Bill reorganises the Scottish administrative machinery. Hon. Members know that when I use the word "machinery" in this context I mean the men and women who make up the Government Departments and whose business it is to carry out the instructions of the Government of the day. The House will agree with me in saying that we have in this country a Civil Service which is second to none in the world. It is very important that the Departments should get the best possible use out of that Service. Hon. Members are not, therefore, likely to under-estimate the importance of organisation. We are all, private Members or members of the Government, acutely aware of the growing complexity of public business and the increasing speed with which that business has to be conducted, and consequently the increasing strain which Government organisation has to bear. I believe that our Scottish organisation has taken this strain wonderfully well. It discharges infinitely larger tasks than ever before and does so with great efficiency. This efficiency, despite greater difficulties, has in my view not been gained at the expense of what I would call the human touch, for I think that hon. Members, with their experience of these affairs, will agree that our Scottish Government Departments are not the remote institutions that, according to popular conception, they once were. They are more in touch with pubilc opinion than they were in the past. But we want to extend and to strengthen this quality.
Some of the proposals which I shall outline are expressly designed for this purpose. Hon. Members know of the increased number of deputations, for example, which are now being received not only by myself and the Under-Secretary of State, but by the heads of the

Scottish Departments. Many of these deputations, which come from local authorities and other interested bodies, are now received in Edinburgh. This is greatly to the convenience of these local authorities, though there are times perhaps when there may be a shade of disappointment that a deputation is not called to London, for the Metropolis still holds some attractions. But, broadly speaking, there is no doubt that 'the arrangements made to receive deputations in Edinburgh to a far greater extent than formerly have helped the Scottish Office organisation and have brought our Departments more into touch with public opinion in Scotland. I wish to encourage and extend that process.
There have been important adjustments in our Scottish organisation in the past, but the adjustments that I am about to outline are on a bigger scale than usual. Perhaps I should not be wrong in describing them as the most comprehensive reform of Government in Scotland since 1885. I believe that the circumstances of the day demand that these changes should be made, and I believe that they will prove to be worth while. The proposals are based on the Report of the Committee on Scottish Administration. That committee was appointed at the end of 1936 by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Health, who was then Secretary of State for Scotland. He appointed the committee to inquire into and report on the organisation and duties of the Scottish administrative Departments under the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The committee was a very strong one. Its chairman was my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow (Sir J. Gilmour), who himself had been in charge of the Scottish Office for many years and who brought an unequalled experience to the work of the committee. It included also the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), who has also had considerable experience of the Scottish Office, and a former Member of Parliament, Sir Robert Hamilton, who represented a Scottish constituency for many years and who has had administrative experience, not in the Scottish Office, but in another Government Department. Apart from these Parliamentary connections, a glance at the membership of the committee, which is set out on page 4 of the report,


will show that every member had special qualifications to participate in the inquiry. The report was presented to Parliament in October, 1937, and I am glad to say that the committee were able to arrive at unanimous recommendations. I should like to take this opportunity again to thank my right hon. Friend and the members of the committee for the very great service which they have rendered in their work. In fact, I claim that anyone who wants to know how Scotland is governed will find a mine of information within this report, which I commend to them.
There were, I think, three main considerations underlying the inquiry to which this Committee addressed itself. In the first place, there was, and there still is, a desire on the part of many Scottish people to see Scottish administration brought as far as possible nearer home, although at present about 97 per cent. of the total staff under the control of the Secretary of State are already stationed in Scotland, not only in Edinburgh, but in Scotland as a whole. But it is clearly desirable to consider what further steps can be taken to ensure the closest possible contact between Scottish administration and Scottish public opinion, so the first consideration was that of bringing the administration nearer home in the fullest sense.
In the second place, it had long been recognised that the machinery of Scottish administration had grown up in a somewhat haphazard fashion. Perhaps I do not need to elaborate that to hon. Members who have had experience of Scottish administration. The relations of the Departments with each other and the distribution of duties between them called for review in the interests of efficiency. The third consideration was that the construction of the new Government building on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, seemed to make the time opportune for such an inquiry. This building is expected to be ready in August of next year, and the Committee was expressly directed in the conduct of its inquiry to keep in view
the prospective concentration of Departments in one building in Edinburgh.
The recommendations of the Committee are summarised on pages 53 and 54 of the report, and they fall under two heads—those recommendations which require legislation and those which can be carried into effect by administrative

action. The Government have already announced the general acceptance of the Committee's recommendations, and the Bill now before the House deals only with those recommendations which require legislation, but it will form the foundation upon which we shall build a new organisation. I propose, therefore, to explain to the House, not only what is done by the Bill directly, but some of the further and consequential steps which it will be possible to take as a result of passing this Bill into law. The three recommendations of the Committee which require legislation involve the transference of the functions of the Scottish Education Department, the Department of Health for Scotland, the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, the Fishery Board for Scotland, and the Prisons Department for Scotland, to the Secretary of State.
At present the Scottish Education Department is nominally a Committee of the Privy Council. It consists of the Lord President of the Council, as Chairman, and myself, the Secretary of State, as Vice-Chairman, and the ordinary members, I believe, are the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate. There were also four peers who were members of the Committee at one time, but when those peers died, their places were not filled. Hon. Members will agree that this was an organisation which required some overhauling. Although in point of fact the Department itself worked harmoniously and usefully, it was obviously out of date in its organisation. The Committee last met in 1913, and the Committee on Scottish Administration recorded the arrangement as anomalous and quite out of keeping with modern conditions. The other Departments concerned are separate legal entities and possess statutory powers distinct from those of the Secretary of State, though the Fishery Board is required to comply with any instructions which the Secretary of State may issue, and the Departments of Agriculture, Health, and Prisons are required to act under his direction and control.
The first Clause of the Bill gives effect to the Committee's recommendations on this point and makes several consequential provisions. It reflects the constitutional position, which I think the House will agree as being a proper one to reflect, that the ultimate responsibility to Parliament


for all Departmental actions must lie with the Minister, and it paves the way for a Departmental reorganisation and for a redistribution of certain Departmental functions. To illustrate what I mean when I say that these Departments at present are separate legal entities, hon. Members will have noticed that when we have Bills passing through the House which have application to Scotland and England as well, as for instance the Cancer Bill yesterday, the opposite number in the Scottish application to the English Minister—in this case, the Minister of Health—may be not the Secretary of State but a Department, in this case the Department of Health for Scotland. That is the present position, and the Bill proposes, acting on the suggestion of the Committee, to alter it by transferring the responsibility to the Secretary of State.
It is intended in future that there shall be four main Scottish Departments. Three of these will be the Departments of Education, of Health, and of Agriculture respectively, and the fourth a new Scottish Home Department, which, broadly speaking, will take over the functions of the Scottish Office, the Fishery Board, and the Prisons Department. These four main Departments will be of equal status, and each Department will be in charge of a Secretary, who will be fully and directly responsible to the Secretary of State for the duties of his Department. The House will appreciate the change that is being made here. As far as possible, the day-to-day administration of all the Departments will be carried on in Edinburgh, but each Department will have representatives in London for any work which requires to be done in London on its behalf. I will return to that point later. The head of the Prisons Department, when it becomes a division of the new Scottish Home Department, will bear the special title of "Director of the Scottish Prison Service." It is also proposed to associate the Registrar-General more closely with the Department of Health and to make him an officer of that Department, while retaining the existing title of Registrar-General.
It is further intended that the Secretary of State himself shall have the assistance of a senior officer outside the Departmental organisation who will act as an adviser. This point is dealt with at some length in the report, in paragraphs 48 to 54. This officer of high rank will be

available to offer advice on any question coming before the Secretary of State, and, as the Committee remarks, his counsel should be most valued and most valuable on questions where more than one Department is concerned or where the matter at issue falls outside the recognised province of any of the Departments. There is constant need for the coordination of Departmental action, and there is also constant need for action on matters which do not come within the recognised province of any Scottish Department, but which may concern Scotland in an important degree. This officer will retain the existing designation of Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I may mention that that. is a point of detail on which I propose to diverge from the Committee's recommendation, but I am sure that hon. Member's will agree that it is necessary that there should be at the disposal of the Secretary of State a civil servant of high rank. He will not be over the heads of the other Departments, but he will be available to the Secretary of State for the services which I have outlined.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: What will be his relations with the other Departments?

Mr. Colville: He will be attached to the Secretary of State. There are very many duties, as I have endeavoured to explain, which are not quite clearly of a Departmental character, but which affect the Secretary of State for Scotland. The hon. Member will be aware that the Scottish Secretary is expected to interest himself in an immense field, and he must have at his hand, for discussions and conferences in London, an officer of high rank who is able to assist him in these conferences. At the same time the Secretaries of the main Departments to which I have referred, the new Home Department, the Agriculture, Education, and Health Departments, will be the heads of those Departments properly and will have direct access to the Secretary of State.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Will this selected official, whoever he or she may be, have any power to interfere with Departmental decisions or to advise with regard to Departmental decisions?

Mr. Colville: No. The officer will not have power to interfere, as the hon. Member has put it, with Departmental decisions.

Mr. Buchanan: Then what is the need for him?

Mr. Colville: If the hon. Member had even a short experience in the office which I happen to hold at the moment, he would soon find the need for having beside him an officer of high rank to take part in the conferences which are frequently taking place between the Departments in London on matters affecting Scottish affairs.

Mr. Buchanan: But as most of us have had no such experience, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what this officer is going to do? What will this gentleman do to justify his salary?

Mr. Colville: If the hon. Member will turn to the relevant paragraphs in the report, paragraphs 48 to 54, he will see set out at very considerable length the view that the Secretary of State, in his day-to-day work, must have the assistance of such a high civil servant. Paragraph 52, for example, says:
We visualise that the normal station of the Permanent Secretary would he in London at the Minister's right hand. At the same time we contemplate that he would pay frequent visits to Scotland, especially when Parliament is not sitting. In a later part of our report we recommend that the Permanent Secretary should preside over important interdepartmental conferences. We think that periodical visits to Edinburgh will be valuable.
There is no doubt about that. He will not be able to interfere in the sense that the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson) suggested. This paragraph sets out his functions and it should reassure the hon. Member of the desirability of having an officer of this kind to assist the Secretary of State.

Mr. Kennedy: I think I am right in assuming—for the report says so—that this Civil Servant will have no Departmental responsibilities.

Mr. Colville: I made that quite clear.

Mr. Buchanan: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman say what he is going to do if he is to have nothing to do with the Departments? He will evidently just nose about and see what the Departments are doing. He will be a "Nosey Parker" and get a high salary for it.

Mr. Colville: The hon. Member has not given that degree of study to the subject which the members of the Committee gave to it.

Mr. Buchanan: But it is for the right hon. Gentleman to tell us.

Mr. Stephen: Do the Committee give any reasons in their report for this appointment?

Mr. Colville: The Secretary of State for Scotland is 400 miles distant from the Edinburgh Departments and he is bound to have conferences in London with other Departments. It is necessary that he should have with him to assist him in those conferences an official of high rank. I have dealt with the way in which the Departments in Edinburgh will be represented in London and there will be no question of encroaching upon the responsibilities of those Departments.

Mr. Davidson: With what other Departments does the Secretary of State have conferences for which he wants the assistance of this new official?

Mr. Colville: The hon. Member surely has not followed what must take place from day to day. A great deal of my time is taken up in conferences with other Departments such as the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Labour and, at times, the Service Departments. All the time there are conferences between such Departments, at which the Scottish Office must be represented. It can frequently be represented by the Secretary of State himself, but there are many conferences which civil servants have to attend.

Mr. Stephen: The right hon. Gentleman says that this individual will not interfere with the decisions of the Department, but in their report the Committee point out that
it is by no means impossible that the different Departments may give to the Minister advice tending in inconsistent directions.
This individual is presumably to be a person who will know better than the four Departments what to advise the Minister and he will override the Departments.

Mr. Colville: No, he will not override the Departments. I want to make that clear. Every Departmental head has direct access to the Secretary of State, who must be the one to judge.

Mr. Mathers: May we put it in this way, that this official will make up the Secretary of State's mind?

Mr. Colville: No, that is not necessary. He makes up his own mind, and he has


made it up in this case by following this valuable recommendation of the Committee. Before I was interrupted I was explaining the organisation of the four Scottish Departments.
It is intended that there shall be some reallocation of duties between the four Departments. In general, the Departments of Education, Health, and Agriculture will carry out their existing functions. I have already indicated the scope of the new Scottish Home Department. Some detailed adjustments will however have to be made, as suggested by the Committee. For example, the Scottish Office now deals with rent restriction because the Rent Restrictions Acts put the responsibility upon the Secretary of State, whereas housing in Scotland is the statutory concern of that separate legal entity, the Department of Health. Rent restriction is closely bound up with housing and, it is suggested, ought to be dealt with by the Department of Health. This is an illustration of the anomalous arrangements which are inevitable under the existing system and which it will be possible to remedy, in accordance with the Committee's recommendations and in the light of experience, as soon as all Departmental functions have been vested in the Secretary of State. Incidentally, under this system, which is more flexible, overlapping and duplication of work will disappear.
The second Clause deals with the reorganisation of the General Board of Control. This matter is discussed in paragraphs 64–69 of the Committee's report. It was represented to the Committee by certain witnesses that the intimate relations between mental and physical health made it desirable to abolish the board altogether and to transfer its functions to the Department of Health. Hon. Members will, perhaps, recollect that that was also the conclusion reached by the Committee of Scottish Health Services in 1936. The Committee on Scottish Administration came to the conclusion, however, after careful consideration, that there were special reasons—in particular the necessity of having a separate body with independent and quasi-judicial functions to protect the interests of the insane—which made it desirable to retain the board. The Government accept this recommendation. At the same time they feel that the views expressed by the Com-

mittee as to the need for strengthening the board's staff and associating it more closely with the Department of Health are wise.
The existing board is, therefore, being reconstituted. It will consist of a paid whole-time chairman, who will be an officer of the Department of Health holding the rank of assistant secretary; the two existing paid medical commissioners, a part-time paid legal commissioner, a representative of the Scottish Education Department, and two unpaid members representing the general public. This constitution makes certain changes from the present arrangement and brings the board more closely in touch with the Department of Health.

Mr. Westwood: On the question of continuing the Board of Control, was any evidence taken by the Committee from medical men for the purpose of enabling them to come to a decision on this point, in view of the fact that the Committee which inquired into the health services took evidence from all kinds of medical authorities and had in its own composition six medical men?

Mr. Colville: The Committee took the evidence of several medical men. They had the Scottish Division of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association before them in the person of Professor Henderson and Dr. McAlister. They also had the Board of Control for England and Wales and heard Sir Hubert Bond representing the medical interests, and also Dr. Thomson of the Board of Control for Scotland. The Committee gave careful thought to that aspect of the problem. The reason which led them to the conclusion which they presented in their report was that the interests of the insane made it necessary to have a separate body with independent quasi-judicial functions. I can assure the hon. Member who cited the Scottish Committee on Health Services that that was fully before the Government when they were weighing the considerations on which they had to decide whether to accept the recommendations of the Committee on Health Services or the more recent recommendations of the Committee on Scottish Administration.
On balance, the Government decided that the advice expressed as to the protection of the interests of the insane by a quasi-judicial body was good, and


therefore they have adopted it in the form in which it appears in the Bill. The necessary provision is made in Clause 2. It is also intended that the functions of the Secretary of State relating to lunacy and mental deficiency should, when the new system becomes operative, be discharged through the Department of Health and not through the Scottish Office as at present. Before leaving this subject I should like to pay tribute to Sheriff Morton, the present unpaid chairman of the board. He was an unpaid member of the board under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Rose, and on the latter's death he accepted the chairmanship in May, 1936, in the knowledge that measures of reorganisation were under consideration and that his tenure of office might be limited. I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation of his services.
Clause 3 appoints a Scottish Fisheries Advisory Council. Before dealing with this I would like to say a word about the Fishery Board itself, whose general functions are being transferred to the Secretary of State by Clause 1. As the report says, in paragraph 31, the Fishery Board is at present subject to Scottish Office control. We now want to change this system, with its duplication of work and consequent delay, and in its place to create an organisation which will deal with all aspects of fishery administration. The Committee held the view that such an office would be too small to pursue a wholly independent life, and recommended that it should be linked up with the Scottish Home Department. We propose to carry out this recommendation and to set up a Fisheries Division of the Home Department under a secretary of its own.

Mr. Boothby: Will he be a civil servant?

Mr. Colville: Yes, Sir. The present members of the board were appointed for five years from January, 1936, and all accepted office in the knowledge that legislation dealing with Scottish administration might affect the constitution of the board before the end of that period. The present board includes four trade representatives and after its abolition it will be essential to provide for close contact between the new Fisheries Division and the fishing industry in order that expert advice may be at the disposal of the

Secretary of State. The Committee accordingly proposed the institution of a Scottish Fishery Advisory Council, and Clause 3 carries out this recommendation. The council is to consist of not more than 12 members appointed by the Secretary of State after consultation with the various sections of the fishing industry. Clause 4 gives effect to an incidental recommendation of the Committee. Under the existing law the field of recruitment for legal posts in the Scottish Department is restricted by the exclusion of members of the Bar, and it is proposed to remove this restriction.
It will be appreciated that any change of the kind which I have been outlining will inevitably involve extensive drafting Amendments in existing Statutes, and it is proposed in Clause 1 (4) that the Secretary of State may make Orders for this purpose, and Sub-section (5) provides that the Orders shall be laid before each House of Parliament for 21 days before they take effect. In an earlier Measure similar provision was made for the Secretary of State to make Orders, but there was no provision at that time for laying them before Parliament for 21 days, and that is a safeguard which we think it proper to introduce. Clause 6 provides for bringing the Act into operation in accordance with Orders to be made by the Secretary of State. It is hoped that the general scheme of reorganisation will be ready by August next year, when the new Calton Hill building is expected to be complete. But changes in organisation and the actual transference of the Departments to the new buildings will have to be made carefully and systematically, and it may be necessary to move step by step.
Let me now turn to the important question of the representation of the Scottish Departments in London, in connection with which the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) expressed anxiety about the chief of staff. We want to base our administration on Edinburgh, where close contact can be maintained with Scottish opinion. On the other hand it is essential to be able to express Scottish views effectively in London if Scotland is to play a proper part in the evolution of policy relating to Great Britain as a whole. The late Sir Godfrey Collins, when he opened the Edinburgh branch of the Scottish Office, in February, 1935, said:


Scottish interests must be effectively upheld in the multitude of committees, conferences, meetings and discussions, formal and informal, on every variety of subject, which commonly pave the way for the formation of Government policy or the drafting of legislation. This requires strong representation in Whitehall.
The question cannot be solved always by visits of the heads of Departments and senior officers in London, although such visits will frequently continue to be necessary. A Departmental head cannot be held responsible for the efficient control of his Department if he is obliged to spend a large part of his time away from it. It is accordingly intended that Dover House, which now accommodates the Scottish Office in Whitehall, should become a centre for representative staffs from each of the four main Departments in Edinburgh, and steps have already been taken in this direction. The Departments of Education, Health and Agriculture already maintain representatives at Dover House for the purpose of keeping in constant touch with Ministers and the London Departments, and the new Home Department, when formed, will come under the same arrangement. The value of the work has already been proved and I have reason to believe that the presence of those officers in London has been of considerable help not only to the Secretary of State but also to Scottish Members of Parliament, who frequently make contact with them.
I see that the hon. Member for Gorbals smiles at my assertion that these members of the Scottish staffs are ever any help to a Member of Parliament, but if he has not had that experience there are others who have found that by going direct to the Scottish Office and seeing a fairly senior representative of an Edinburgh Department they can at first hand get valuable information which saves them a great deal of correspondence, and I hope that that system may be encouraged. The Department now known as the Scottish Office will form the nucleus of the new Scottish Home Department. As hon. Members are aware, a branch of the Scottish Office, under the name of the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland, was established at Edinburgh in 1935. This branch will be transferred to the new Calton Hill building, together with certain sections of the London staff. The Committee recognised in their report that in the case of the Scottish Home Department it would

probably be necessary to make special arrangements for the performance of essential London work; but whatever plans may be made for this purpose I can assure the House that the Scottish Home Department will be based upon Edinburgh, in accordance with the Committee's recommendations.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Will that office of the Scottish Secretary in Edinburgh which is to be transferred remain as a separate unit or be included in the whole Department?

Mr. Colville: It will come into the general organisation. The Secretary of State will, of course, have his room and accommodation in the Calton Hill building, but there will not be a separate Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Mathers: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Calton Hill building will be adequate for the purpose for which it was originally intended?

Mr. Buchanan: Is it the intention to increase the work of the Home Department so as to take in the work of the Home Office—to take in other work than the work it is now doing?

Mr. Colville: No, it is not intended to do that; and in answer to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) I am advised that the Calton Hill Building will be sufficient for the purposes for which it was designed. The Bill and the plans which I have outlined give effect, down to almost the last detail, to the recommendations of the Committee on Scottish Administration. As I said at the beginning, it deals only with machinery, not with policy. But as hon. Members know, on the efficiency and the humanity of that machine, under the direction of Parliament, depends much of the welfare of our 5,000,000 people in Scotland. I do not for a moment wish to shift the burden from Parliament, but the importance that the machine itself should be human and should be in close touch with public opinion in Scotland is immense. The realities behind it are the housing of the people, their health, their education, their assistance in times of need, schemes for developing industry and such means of livelihood as agriculture and fisheries, the supervision of local government and the hundred and one other tasks of the central government.
The proposals I have outlined will bring this organisation more completely under ministerial and therefore under Parliamentary control. That is the central point which I should like hon. Members to have in mind. They will simplify it and make it clear and understandable to all. They will make it more efficient and more flexible and at the same time help to keep it moving with and responsive to Scottish public opinion. In moving the Second Reading I claim that the Bill embodies a big administrative change, the biggest change in Scotland for a number of years. I do not claim that it is a Bill which deals with policy in the broad sense but I claim that in the efficient running of our Scottish administration this Bill will be a great landmark.

4.54 P.m.

Mr. T. Johnston: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
whilst welcoming the reorganisation of Scottish Offices, this House is of opinion that more far-reaching measures are required for the better administration of affairs in Scotland.
As the Secretary of State for Scotland has just said, this is a purely administrative Bill, designed to give effect to most of the recommendations and suggestions of what is known as the Gilmour Committee, so-called because it was presided over by the right hon. Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour). Our terms of reference as a committee were inadequate. For example, we could not possibly include the question of the ownership and control of the lands held by the Crown Lands Commissioners, or the land, and its utilisation, in the hands of the Forestry Commission, although it was obviously of the first importance that the Department of Agriculture for Scotland and the Forestry Commission, to say nothing of the Crown Lands Commissioners, should be under one head and have one common policy, and not, as we have seen in the past, occasionally in competition for the purchase of land or in competition for the utilisation of that land when it had been purchased. It is surely bad public policy to have two Government Departments if not actively competing in price at any rate with one as a reserved purchaser against the other, and it is bad public

policy that one should be struggling to increase the number of sheep upon our Scottish hillsides while the other may be struggling to get the sheep off and to be growing timber.
Again, we could not possibly include any questions which affect the Ministry of Labour. Our terms of reference confined us to dealing with the offices under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland. His office at many points touches health and education, and it runs tutelary classes, which, in my view, ought clearly to be under the control of our Education Department, and it has functions which clearly ought to be under the control of our Department of Health. Nor could we get in questions which affect the Ministry of Transport. Here, again, another Government Department might purchase land and be ordering materials, and its activities might impinge upon our local government system in many directions. I came across one humorous instance since the Committee's Report was published. It concerned the town of Girvan in Ayrshire. The Ministry of Transport had served a notice upon the County Council of Ayr, believing that by so doing they were legally serving a notice upon the town council of Girvan. The County Council of Ayr had, of course, no jurisdiction over the burgh of Girvan, but by the time Girvan heard about the notice its opportunities for making application for a public grant were past, and Girvan is naturally rather sore. This is a case in point where, if the Ministry of Transport had consulted the Scottish Office, they would have learned that the proper authority for roads inside the burgh of Girvan was the burgh of Girvan itself and not the county council. Therefore, I suggest that our terms of reference were unduly limited, and that the recommendations do not even now make an effective scheme for local government in Scotland.
Within the limits permitted we sought to devise machinery whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland could harmonise his array of Departments. We disagreed with one of the recommendations of a previous committee, the Scottish Health Services Committee, upon which my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood) took an active and interesting part. The committee recommended that the Board of Control should be absorbed into the Department of Health for Scotland. The grounds of the recommenda-


tion were that mental ill-health was very closely allied to physical ill-health and that it was not proper that there should be two Government Departments dealing with ill-health. We had evidence in support of that view from a number of mental authorities, but we also had evidence from medical authorities in direct conflict with that view. For example, we had very strong evidence from the English Board of Control and its medical officers. In the end we came unanimously to our conclusion. In our unanimity we carried with us a gentleman, Professor Gray, who was a member of the Scottish Health Services Committee and signed their report. The weight of the new evidence convinced him, although with some reluctance, that he ought to abandon his previous attitude and sign our report and so make it unanimous.

Mr. Westwood: He also signed a minority report.

Mr. Johnston: That is true, but he also signed our report. In this matter he agreed with us in his minority report. There is another aspect of this matter of mental ill-health. There is what is called the liberty of the subject. Very strong representations were made to us upon that point. If the Secretary of State and the Department of Health were to be the last word, subject to an appeal to the sheriff, as to when a man should be taken to a mental home compulsorily, or when he should be excluded from a mental home at his own request, the Secretary of State for Scotland would be placed in the midst of a very great deal of unnecessary political trouble. Members of Parliament would be, as they are to-day on some matters, subject to pressure, although they are not appropriate judges as to when a man is in ill-health or not. Nor, for that matter, are a man's relatives sometimes. I do not believe that a sheriff, however able he may be and learned in the law, is necessarily a qualified man to say when John Jones or Bill Smith should be allowed to get out of a mental home. Evidence was tendered to us by the Lord Advocate, who, if I recollect aright, gave very strong evidence, as to what had happened when persons were released under pressure from mental homes. There were questions of what had happened to young children, and so on. At any rate, we came unanimously to the conclusion that while the liberty

of the subject could be preserved, so far as it was possible in the circumstances, by having this Board of Control, with a number of medical men upon it and with either a judge or a King's Counsel—I forget which—presiding, we had to consider what to do for the best, and we thought we should be well advised to keep clear of political pressure, as had been done in England for many years with considerable success.
We agreed with the Committee on the Scottish Health Services that so far as physical health was concerned the work of the Department of Health and of the Board of Control should be dovetailed, and that there should be officers from the one on the committee of the other. I gather that that recommendation has been accepted in its entirety by the Secretary of State for Scotland and that effect will be given to it. The right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors have had in recent years to represent the Department of Education for Scotland, which has grown up haphazard. It was supposed to be controlled by a Committee of the Privy Council, although that committee has not met since 1913. In the Department of Education for Scotland "My Lords" were in fact a distinguished civil servant. I think I am right in that statement. It has needed a very strong-minded Secretary of State for Scotland to alter an answer on an educational question put by a Member of this House when the answer was drafted in the Department for Education. That has disappeared. We did not suggest anything in our report to remedy the fantastic situation in which a Secretary of State for Scotland sits 400 miles away from the land he governs, like a Pooh-Bah in the town of Titipu, in his own person invested all the business of the State, administering and governing Departments which he never sees.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Except once a month.

Mr. Johnston: The Secretary of State for Scotland requires a permanent undersecretary. That is essential, because not only has he four major Departments, but he has about 100 other sub-departments which he never sees, and I question whether he knows of their existence. The words used in the report were that there was a vast nebulous area of territory round about those four Departments. and


that the Secretary of State for Scotland required continual advice, help and assistance of one kind or another. We also recommended that he should get an assistant Parliamentary Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman omitted to tell us why he did not accept that recommendation, and I wish he would tell us. It was a recommendation that the Government should appoint another Parliamentary Secretary to help the Secretary of State for Scotland to do his job. It is a physical impossibility for one man to do the job. I speak in the presence of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Pollok and of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) when I say it is physically impossible for one man to be Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Health, Minister for Education and Minister for local government and of all the 130 sub-departments represented in that way. He cannot do it even with an assistant, even with the Lord Advocate, even with the Solicitor-General, or even by borrowing somebody from some other Department as they do in the House of Lords. Cannot the Secretary of State tell us why the Government turned down the recommendation?

Mr. Colville: The right hon. Gentleman has indicated that reference was made to this matter in the report, but it was not made as a specific recommendation. A note in the report actually said that it was not a specific recommendation. The committee drew attention to the matter and expressed the view that the Secretary of State was very hard-worked, and naturally I will not dissent from that view. I will say that the committee's view, expressed as an observation, has been carefully considered, but the creation of an additional Parliamentary Under-Secretary is not felt to be justified in the present circumstances. Further consideration of the matter is not precluded, after experience has been gained of the new arrangements contemplated. I make that statement and I can go no further to-day, but I draw attention to the fact that the committee did make that as an observation rather than as a specific recommendation, and that, none the less, I shall have regard to it.

Mr. Johnston: I would bet the last penny I possessed that that carefully

phrased piece of nothingness was devised in His Majesty's Treasury. The Secretary of State for Scotland said that he would not dissent from the statement that he is rather a busy man. He is learning the language. We have a record by one of his predecessors, Lord Alness, at a time when there was far less work in the Scottish Office than there is now. Lord Alness said that in the course of one year he kept a record which showed that he had made 55 journeys between England and Scotland in one year. He received 200 deputations, he had his Cabinet and his Parliamentary work and he had to write 10,000 memoranda, although not in the course of one year, but in his period of office as Secretary of State for Scotland. The only thing he did not tell us was how he filled up his spare time. One thing about Lord Alness was that after this experience he came to the conclusion that there was only one cure for the situation and that was Home Rule for Scotland. I am debarred from discussing that matter here to-night, unfortunately. Incidentally, other Secretaries of State for Scotland have come to a similar conclusion.

Mr. Stephen: Why are we barred from discussing it?

Mr. Johnston: If the hon. Member with his legal knowledge would take up the cudgels on our behalf we should be obliged. I assure him that I spent some time battling to have regarded as proper and legal an Amendment which I put upon the Order Paper on that matter, but I had to take it off and we had to put down another Amendment of a much less precise and specific character. I hope it conveys the general sense of what we on this side mean when we say that the proposals of His Majesty's Government on this matter are inadequate. It is no use simply criticising and giving out no concrete suggestions. In 1930–31, I remember, we started a system whereby we invited Scottish Members of Parliament to come to the Scottish Office on a particular day of the week, and I am not sure that sometimes we did not invite the whole of the Liberal party. Sometimes we took Members by area, the West of Scotland on one day, the East of Scotland on another and the North of Scotland on another. We brought the heads of all the Departments of the Scottish Office. The Members of Parliament asked any


questions they liked, and got all the information that it was possible to give them, and we thought that to some extent that was of benefit to the Scottish people.
Even that meagre contact has disappeared. Some of my hon. Friends and I took a deputation to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor about a year ago, for the purpose of asking him to examine a detailed scheme for a better use of the Scottish Grand Committee, and the then Secretary of State and his two legal colleagues promised to give careful and sympathetic examination to the proposals. A year has elapsed, and we have not heard what the result of their inquiries has been. I am not at all surprised. I am certain that neither of the three gentlemen concerned has the time to make a detailed examination of any proposed alterations in machinery which would make the government of Scotland a little more democratic and a little less bureaucratic, and bureaucracy on a magnified scale is bound to grow in Scotland unless we can take steps quickly to bring the people of Scotland more into a position of control over their own affairs.
I am not going to disobey the Ruling of the Chair, and, accordingly, I shall not attempt in any way to discuss what might be called devolution, or Scottish Home Rule; I hope that on other occasions we shall have the privilege of doing that; but I would put this point to some of our English colleagues who are listening to me now. They are not many. Sometimes on Tuesdays, when Scottish Members are asking questions, there is on those benches a delusion of the kind which was fostered by Dr. Johnson when he said that the noblest prospect the Scotsman ever had was the sight of England from over the Border; but what are the facts? I took the trouble to go into the Library and consult the Census. The last Census, that of 1931, showed that in London, with a population of 4,390,000 persons, there were Scots-born people to the number of 54,673. That is a large number, but if you take the whole of Scotland at the same date, with a population of only slightly more, namely, 4,842,980, there were more than 168,000 English and Welsh-born people in Scotland at the date of that Census. If one cares to look at the previous Census, to see that this is not a misfit in some way, that it is not due, perhaps, to Admiralty work or something of that kind, one sees that in administra-

tive London the Scots-born population at that date was 49,788, while in Glasgow alone—not in all Scotland—there were 41,601 persons of English birth; that is to say, there were almost as many English men, women and children in Glasgow as there were Scots-born people in London.
These are facts, and they have to be faced. What we desire is less bureaucracy and more democracy. We desire in Scotland a closer approximation of the governors to the governed. Things cannot go on as they are. It is impossible. Since I entered this House in 1922, I have asked over 100 questions, raised the matter on the Adjournment, gone on deputations, written letters, made speeches, and pestered successive Secretaries of State for Scotland, to get one area—an area which I know well—drained of flooding. It has taken me from 1922 to 1938 to get something done upon which everyone—Secretaries of State, officials, the Farmers' Union, the local authorities, and everyone else—is agreed, and which will bring thousands of acres of good land into cultivation. I agree that it is being done now, but it has taken 16 years to get a thing like that done. Every Department is the same.
I conclude by saying that I know, and the right hon. Gentleman knows, and half-a-dozen other Members in this House know, how Scottish legislation is promoted. The Secretary of State and his friends agree on a dozen courses of action that are proper. They convince their colleagues in the Cabinet, their draft Bills are taken before the Home Affairs Committee and polished up, and then the Secretary of State goes to the Chief Government Whip. The Chief Government Whip says, "You will only get Parliamentary time for this Bill if you will come back and assure me that the Opposition will agree to it. Otherwise I cannot afford the time." There are more days for Spain, more days for Trinidad, more days for Newfoundland, more days for China, more days for all the world, required year after year in this House, and there is less time for home affairs, so that the only Measures that are brought forward are Measures that are pretty nearly non-contentious, that are agreed to by all parties.
I hope I have kept faithfully within the Ruling of the Chair. I have not referred to Scottish Home Rule. But I say that


it is up to the Secretary of State for Scotland, it is up to us, it is up to Members of all parties while there is yet time, and before a new Sinn Fein movement occurs on our northern frontier, it is even in the interests of English Members of this House, to make democracy efficient and to make it work. It is up to us to devolve the functions of this House and to see that the people who are governed have a closer share in the management of their own affairs. We have the present state of frustration, hopelessness, and almost paralysis that is growing upon all Scotland, and the only suggestion that can be made is for a sort of commissar to take away local government. We ask that that state of affairs shall be swept away and a new hope and new opportunities opened before the people of our land.

5.25 p.m.

Sir Archibald Sinclair: The Secretary of State delivered a characteristically impressive speech in introducing this Bill. If he will allow me to say so, I think the speech was a great deal more than worthy of its theme, and a great deal more than worthy of the audience which listened to it. The Bill is a useful Bill, but it is only a little Bill. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) that it is quite incommensurate with what we know to be the clamant needs and requirements of Scotland. But on the whole, coupled with the centralisation of offices in Edinburgh, the plans for which we know are in hand, it will make for more efficient administration, and administration more directly under the vigilance and control of Scottish public opinion. I cannot get excited about it, and I do not think that anyone in Scotland is going to get excited about it. It will change things very little, but I agree that such changes as it will make will be changes in the right direction. Most of them, however, will be very small changes.
Both the Secretary of State and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling have referred, for example, to the reorganisation as it will affect the Scottish Education Department. The Secretary of State said that the organisation required overhauling, and both he and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling were very shocked at the

fact that the Committee of the Privy Council which is supposed to direct and control the work of the Scottish Education Department had not met since 1913. It seemed to shock them very much, but it does not shock me at all. The public will find, and those who are acquainted with Scottish administration know perfectly well, that in fact the changes which are being made in the nominal control of the Scottish Education Department will not affect its working by one iota. Although it was nominally under the control of a Committee of the Privy Council, it was as completely and absolutely under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland as any other Department in the Scottish Office.

Mr. Colville: In fact, but not in name.

Sir A. Sinclair: Yes; I am talking about the facts, not about theories. I am talking about the facts of the practical application of this Bill to Scotland, and how it will affect the people of Scotland, and I say that the overhauling which is alleged to be necessary will affect them not at all, and will not affect the relations between the Scottish Educational administration and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State was just as much responsible to this House for each and every action of the Scottish Education Department as he was for the actions of any other Scottish Department, and this Bill will make no practical difference in that respect. Nor do I care much about symmetry. I like things that grow, and grow all kinds of different shapes, sizes, and colours. As the Secretary of State said, most Scottish Departments have grown in that kind of way, and I do not myself feel very enthusiastic about symmetry. Still I must confess that, cnce changes are being made, once a reorganisation takes place, then the logical case for reorganising the Scottish Education Department on the lines of the other three great Departments is irresistible, and this nominal change has to be made. I do not criticise the Secretary of State for making it; I think in the circumstances it was inevitable; but I say it is practically quite unimportant.
What I regret is the disappearance of the Fishery Board. I am afraid I may have said this before—it is the kind of platitude from which one must begin the discussion of a subject—but there is no country in Europe where fishing is so important to the economic life of the country


as is the case with Scotland—with the possible exception of Norway. It is, therefore, vital, to my mind, that there should be an administrative organ which should devote itself to the affairs of this industry, and one in which the industry should feel confidence. The industry has had a very large measure of confidence in the Fishery Board in the past. There have, it is true, been difficulties in regard to its composition from time to time. There was the great difficulty of getting representative fishermen men of real ability who were sufficiently in touch with the industry to be real representatives. Such men were difficult to find, because if they were really in touch with the industry they wanted to remain in the industry and not to undertake the job of being members of the board in Edinburgh. But, at the same time, these difficulties were overcome, and, on the whole, the board did—and does to-day—command the confidence of the fishing industry. Under its present organisation, it was possible to draw into its service, as chairmen of the board, a succession of really remarkable men who have served the board, successive Secretaries of State, and Scotland well. I am afraid that under this new organisation it will not be quite so easy to get men of that calibre.
The Fishery Department is to be a branch of the Home Department. I am glad the Secretary of State has not made it a branch of the Department of Agriculture. If it is to be a branch of any of these four Departments, it is better that it should be a branch of the Home Department. I would also pay tribute to the Secretary of State for having retained the right of direct access for the head of this sub-department to himself. But, even so, the head of the new Department will not it seems to me, enjoy the status, even if he enjoys the same emoluments, of the present chairman of the Fishery Board, and I cannot think that he will easily get as good a man in the future. The members of the board itself work well together, they work as a team, and a purely advisory council can never fulfil the same functions as the board did. Presumably, it will have no executive functions at all, and I am afraid it will be difficult to get on to an advisory council men with the same qualifications and prepared to give the same amount of constant work to the problems of the fishing industry as those we have on the board at the present time.

These men have executive power; they make their own agenda, they pursue branches of study—many of which, it is true, are indicated to them by the Secretary of State, but they make up their own minds and pursue the branches of study and lines of activity which they believe to be in the interests of the fishing industry; and I cannot help thinking that there will be a loss of power and influence and status to the new Department as compared with the old Fishery Board.
I agree broadly with what the Secretary of State proposes to do as regards the Board of Control. I agree both with what he said and with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling said on that; but I am not sure whether he told us whether the chairman of the Board of Control is to be, as the Committee suggested, a civil servant.

Mr. Colville: I did say that he will be a civil servant.

Sir A. Sinclair: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I was called out for a few minutes during one part of his speech, and I missed that. I was going to enter a plea, if he had not said that, that the chairman should be a layman rather than a civil servant. I have a very clear recollection of the invaluable services which Sir Arthur Rose rendered in that capacity, and I cannot help thinking it would be a good thing if you could get a man of wide practical human interests, like Sir Arthur Rose, to be the head of a board which has the responsibility of deciding on the detention or release of mental defectives. It inspires confidence in ordinary people when the head of a board dealing with these vitally important functions is not a civil servant but an independent individual with these broad sympathies.
With regard to the liaison in London, I agree broadly with the proposals of the Secretary of State, and what is vitally important is that there should be flexibility. Anyone who has knowledge of Scottish administration knows that there are times, when an important Bill affecting Scotland is on the Floor of the House, when it is necessary to have a much larger number of officials from the Scottish Office here than it would be in normal times. I am glad to think that the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman will allow for the necessary flexibility.
On the other hand, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling that it is a pity that the Crown Lands Commission and the Forestry Commission could not have been brought within the scope of the Measure. It seems to me particularly important that the work of forestry should be coordinated with the agricultural policy of the Government, and that the operations of the Forestry Commission in Scotland, at any rate, should be closely coordinated with those of the Department of Agriculture and be under the control of the Secretary of State. We have had instances in which the Forestry Commission, anxious to make the best of some estate which it has bought, in the interests of forestry, plants good wintering ground with trees. It does so because that is the best ground in which to plant the trees, not from any sinister motive or with the purpose of embarrassing the work of the Department of Agriculture. It takes the best ground for forestry, which is very likely the best wintering ground on the estate; and by taking that ground, it puts out of use altogether vast areas of hill grazing, which are useless without the necessary wintering. Therefore, I think there is a very strong case for breaking up the Forestry Commission, and handing over its duties in Scotland to a special Scottish Forestry Commission, co-ordinated with the Department of Agriculture and under the control of the Secretary of State.
I am left still a little puzzled by the explanation of the Secretary of State about the duties which will be discharged by the new Permanent Under-Secretary for Scotland. What is he going to do? I rather gathered, from what the Secretary of State said, that he was not going to advise the Secretary of State on any matter which fell wholly within the responsibility of any of the Departments. I would like to put that as a question. Is it quite clear that the new Permanent Under-Secretary for Scotland will not advise the Secretary of State on any matter which falls wholly within the responsibility of one of the major Departments? The new Permanent Under-Secretary is going to be a senior official, under the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the post will be one to which the heads of Departments may look for promotion. I cannot help wondering whether

there will be enough for an official of this description to do. If he is only going to advise the Secretary of State on things which are outside his ordinary departmental duties, like his relations with the Travel Association or things of that kind, it does not seem to be work for which an officer of such experience and quality would strictly be necessary.
I understand from the report—and I ask the Secretary of State to correct me if he is not going to carry out the recommendations of the report in that respect—that the Permanent Under-Secretary will have the right to send for any files he wants. I wonder what files he will send for, and how he will choose what subjects he is going to interest himself in. Will it be that all files will come through him? I understand not; I understand that it will be only exceptional files, those which affect more than one Department or which do not concern any Department, or presumably the Secretary of State will have the right to refer files for advice to the Permanent Under-Secretary. I would like to ask, whether the Secretary of State will have the right to refer to him any files on which he would like his advice? It seems to me that either the Secretary of State will make a great deal of use of this new Permanent Under-Secretary, and the new Permanent Under-Secretary, being a man of great experience and senior to the heads of the Departments, will acquire more power in the Department, in which case he will become again that bottleneck which it has been the object of administrative reformers in the Scottish Office to remove; or, if he does not interfere, he will have very little to do to justify the emoluments that we shall have to vote for him.
The Secretary of State also said that there will be no Secretary of State's Department; but there will, after all, be himself and his own private office, and the Permanent Under-Secretary will be in the Secretary of State's Department with his staff. If he is going to have a considerable number of files to consider, he will have to have a certain staff. I do not know whether the Secretary of State has yet considered how much of a staff the Permanent Under-Secretary is to have. I should be obliged if the information could be given at the close of the Debate. What staff is the new Permanent Under-Secretary of State intended to have? Will


he be, in fact, in control of Dover House? He will, of course, be the senior officer in Dover House, but will he have control over the liaison officers in Dover House?
It was said by the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench that the Secretary of State is hard worked, that he has much more work than any man can do, and that, therefore, there ought to be another Under-Secretary of State. I do not at all wish summarily to dismiss the arguments in favour of another Under-Secretary of State. I agree that there are very weighty arguments in favour of such an appointment, but the fact remains that, if you appointed a second or even a third Under-Secretary of State, it would still be the Secretary of State who would have to bear the responsibility for everything that was done by each and by all of these Departments. The appointment of any number of Under-Secretaries of State would not avail at all to relieve him of that responsibility. It really is not so much a question of whether the Secretary of State is overworked, but whether the Under-Secretary of State is overworked. However much work the Under-Secretary of State does, the fact remains that the Secretary of State must keep his hands on everything going on in all these Departments, and he may at any time be called upon to answer in this House for anything and everything done by each of these Departments. In my short experience, deputations of important associations and local governing bodies and people of that kind were not very pleased if they could not get access to the Secretary of State, particularly on important questions of policy. Therefore, though I agree that there is a case which we should have to consider, as the Secretary of State said, after there has been some experience of the working of the new scheme for the appointment of a new Under-Secretary of State, I am not quite sure that it would have any very great effect in relieving the Secretary of State of the weight of his responsibilities and work.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling that this Bill is small and does not really meet the needs of Scotland, and that what is really demanded, in the interests of Scotland and Scottish public opinion, is a measure of Home Rule,

which, as he said, we are not at liberty to discuss on this occasion. While I think that the Bill is inadequate, and while I think that nothing short of some measure of Home Rule is really what is required to improve the administration of Scotland, and while, therefore, I shall be bound to vote for the Amendment moved by the Opposition, nevertheless I agree that this is a useful little Measure. Although I have criticised it in detail, broadly speaking it is well designed, and I congratulate the Secretary of State upon introducing it.

5.51 p.m.

Sir John Gilmour: I am indeed delighted to find that the work of a committee which was composed of representatives of all parties in Scotland has been accepted by His Majesty's Government, and we hope to see the proposals which we have made carried into effect before long. I appreciate the criticisms which have been made as to limitations and so on. One realises the fact, but anyone who, like myself, has watched the development of government in Scotland for something like 30 years, and who has been for a period responsible for the work of the machinery as it existed then, feels that this new machinery, if it is worked effectively, must be of enormous advantage to the welfare of Scotland and to a great variety of interests. We have all had our dreams of what we would like to see carried into effect and undoubtedly one thing has been the centralisation of offices in Edinburgh. Anyone who, like myself, has had to go round the Departments from time to time, has found immense personal and administrative difficulties because of the separation of those Departments.
We are now to have in the capital of Scotland a central office, with the controlling and administrative forces here in this Parliament and in the Scottish Office in Whitehall. The difficulties of getting information in the past have been great not only on the part of the Executive Minister here, but on the part of private Members, but above all—and this is a matter of importance—the difficulties of close administrative touch and consultation between the various Departments have also been very marked. Now you are going to have under one roof in the main, the whole of the administrative Departments, with small exceptions. As a Scotsman I am always glad to see


economy where it can be achieved efficiently, but at the present moment, if you want to get answers and replies to questions for Members in this House you are dependent in the main upon the telegraph office, and you fail to get that close, intimate and immediate touch between some person here advising the Minister in Whitehall as to how he is to answer a question in a few hours or in a day's time. Now you are to have a private telephone available for purposes of consultation between those representatives of the Departments for liaison purposes here in London, and in effect you will be able to consult not only the immediate head of one Department but, if necessary, the head of another Department will be available.
In listening to the Debate to-day, I appreciate that those who are anxious about the position of the Secretary of State have put their finger upon the problem of his chief of staff. Anyone who has held the office of Secretary of State for Scotland will realise that it is inevitable that he should have someone available at short notice whom he can consult upon such matters as should be dealt with by a chief of staff. I entirely endorse what has been said, that the representatives of the heads of these four great Departments, whether it is agriculture or education or any other Department, should have direct access to the Secretary of State, but anyone who has knowledge of the past work in that office realises that there will inevitably be differences of opinion possibly upon matters of detail, and, in some cases, upon matters of great importance between one Department and another where their interests and their work may overlap. In these circumstances, therefore, it is not only right for the help of those who are heads of these Departments, but it is essential that whoever is Minister in Charge should have someone whom he can consult. That does not mean in any sense that the advice given by, say, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture shall be definitely overridden by this adviser, far from it. The responsibility inevitably and certainly must rest in the hands of the Secretary of State.
Mention has been made of the problem relating to the mental question. We felt very strongly that, whatever strength there was in the argument for the close

affiliation of health and of mental defects, there was yet that one overriding question of the liberty of the subject. I have had the responsibility of dealing with these problems both in Scotland and in the wider area of this country, and I am quite clear in my own mind that, when it comes to a decision on this matter, it is inevitable that whoever is to give the final decision must have medical advice at his disposal. If we had accepted what I know to be the feeling of some local authorities in Scotland—the position that the Board of Control should be totally abolished and that the responsibility should be put upon the sheriff—it would have been an impossible position in which to put the sheriff, whether he was acting either in the Outer Islands or in a county in the South-West or wherever it might be, unless he could feel that he had a trained and efficient medical council to whom he could turn for final judgment on this matter. The sheriff no doubt has certain rights and privileges now, but behind all that, the individual and the general public have the knowledge that the Board of Control have a close and intimate knowledge and can act and investigate the cases, and it is essential that something of that nature should continue. I am sure that that is a position which even the sheriffs themselves would take up. I hope, therefore, that this proposal will be retained, because, while I realise that in the future fresh legislation on such problems as these may take place, I am looking at this matter from the point of view of the circumstances as we find them to-day and the necessity for the protection of the interests, not only of the individual mental cases, but of their relatives and friends.
I turn for a moment to what has caused some anxiety in the minds of those who are interested in the fishing industry. I have watched the administration of that Department and I am clear in my own mind—and I think that the Committee were clear—that it would have been a mistake, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) has said, to have linked up this Department with the Ministry of Agriculture. Not that that casts any reflection upon the Ministry of Agriculture. But I have felt, from the knowledge of the subject which I obtained from offices in Scotland and in England, that it would be desirable that this duty should be


handed over to what we now call the Home Department. The Fishery Board has passed through various transitions, but the fact remains that the chairman of that board to-day is a civil servant. It is true that there are many Members of this House and of the public who have thought that they reached decisions on their own account, but the plain and patent fact remains that when it comes down to tin tacks, money and so on, the decision inevitably is in the hands of the Secretary of State. You have a board which is representative of the fishing industry in a variety of branches, and our feeling was that by retaining the chairman as a civil servant and adding an advisory council we should retain all the help and advice from the fishery interests.
If this scheme is worked as we hope it will be worked, it may even be found that we shall have a wider and more representative advisory board than we have at the present time. Frankly, the difficulty has been that there are differences of opinion between certain sections of the fishery interests. Those differences exist and I suppose it is inevitable that they should continue to exist, but it is also not clear that all these differing interests are at present represented upon the Fishery Board. If that is the case, the fishery interests may feel assured that by being placed under the Home Department and having a wise Advisory Board they will have the widest opportunity of having their different points put and considered.
I look forward to the working of this Measure with the feeling that many of the weaknesses from which we have suffered may be overcome. There is no doubt that the volume of work which falls upon the Secretary of State is very heavy, and I hope that in time we may see a second Under-Secretary appointed for Scottish work. The reason I say that is that the Secretary of State for Scotland must inevitably be here in Parliament. He must be able to attend the Cabinet if he is going to keep his side up when there are discussions upon problems, say, which affect the fishing interests. He must be able to meet those who are speaking for the fishery interests of England. He must be able to put the case of Scotland, whether it is on finance or any new legislation dealing with any of these problems. Therefore, with our centralised organisation in Scotland, we are going to make it much easier for the interests in Scotland,

whether of local government, agriculture or fisheries, to have the right of access to the responsible officials of the Department.
It is equally certain that the Secretary of State cannot himself personally always be in the north, when things are going on here while Parliament is sitting. The position, therefore, demands that someone else with responsibility and knowledge should be available, and ought to be available, to go north at comparatively short notice and be able to attend conferences in Edinburgh. That is why I trust that the Government will accept the suggestion that we make. We realise that it was not perhaps definitely within the remit to us, but having heard all the evidence and having the intimate knowledge which some of us have through working in the Scottish Office, we felt that the time was ripe for the appointment of an additional Under-Secretary.
This Bill raises a very wide subject, and one feels that this new development may lead to fresh efficiency and the stimulating of a feeling in Scotland among all classes and ranks of people that this is really a Measure which will give greater efficiency in the Government of our country. I hope that it will be of great assistance to whoever holds the office of Secretary of State for Scotland. In these circumstances it is a great pleasure for me to support the Bill, and I hope the House will feel that, whatever its limitations may be, it is a matter on which we can agree and that we shall all wish the Bill to work smoothly and successfully.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Stephen: I feel a little diffident in entering into this Debate, which has been so far conducted by Ministers or ex-Ministers who have had experience in connection with administration in Scotland. I have only had the experience of going to Ministers and trying to get something out of them for my constituents. So far as I have been able to understand from a careful reading of the report of the committee and listening to the speeches to-day, I must confess that I cannot share the anticipations of the right hon. Gentleman that this Measure is going to lead to new efficiency in our Scottish administration. So far as I can gather from the discussion, the Bill will give formal legal sanction to what is pretty much in existence at the present time. It really confers legislative sanction


on present practice in our Scottish administration. It may be that it does a bit more. It may be that there is dubiety as to whether an office boy really belongs to one Department or to another Department. Under this Measure it will be known whether that office boy is in the Home Office or in the Department of Education.
As regards the Measure conferring some new power upon the people of Scotland, it is absolute nonsense to suggest that it will introduce any great changes in our administration. My reason for intervening is to impress upon the Secretary of State that our difficulties in Scotland have not been due so much to the fact that the present administration has grown up and is somewhat unsymmetrical, but to the fact that the Government of our country is very largely conducted here. It is not the administration that is at fault so much as the fact that the real power is here, and that the wishes and the needs of the people of Scotland may be very largely thwarted by the fact that that power is in this Chamber and in the hands of a majority of people who represent English constituencies.
I do not want to transgress the Rulings, in view of the warning given to me by my hon. Friend above the Gangway, but I would press on the Secretary of State that he should set up either a Royal Commission or a Departmental Committee, with wide terms of reference, to consider the better government of Scotland and the necessary changes that should be made to provide for the improvement of our conditions. The various interests that are alarmed with regard to the circumstances of our people would be able to go to that committee, and the Secretary of State could be advised by that committee after it had considered the representations made to them by the various organisations in Scotland in regard to the better government of the country.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. Member has gone about as far as I can allow him to go on that point.

Mr. Stephen: I have great respect for your Ruling, and I realise that this is an administrative Measure and a question of machinery rather than of policy. I do not want to transgress your Ruling, but

I hope the Secretary of State, within the limit of that Ruling, will try to give me an answer to the proposal that I put to him before you called question what I was saying. The point has been raised whether the Fishery Board under the Home Office will be less effective than was the old board. I am inclined to prefer the Department, because hon. Members for Scottish constituencies have a greater control over a Ministry than they have over a board. The responsibility of a Minister for his Department is more direct than his responsibility for a board, because if a Department is not doing what it ought to do in regard to the interests of any particular industry with which it is concerned, we can come here and kick the Minister to our hearts' content, and get opinion going on the matter. There is possibly an advantage in the change in that respect. Many of the unemployed have been taken out of the purview of the Minister of Labour and put under the direction of the Unemployment Assistance Board. I think the unemployed had a far better chance when the Minister of Labour was directly responsible, and I think it will be all to the good if say the fishing industry is under the control of a Department.
When I listened to the right hon. Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) making his plea for the old Fishery Board I thought of the state of the fishing industry in Scotland under the board. It is simply appalling; it is in a horrible mess. Whether the fact that the Fishery Board is under a sub-Department will make any difference, I do not know. The defects, however, are not so much in the machine as in the places where power really is. The great weaknesses have not been in the form of the machinery but in the Secretaries of State for Scotland, who have shown on so many occasions their comparative incapacity to stand up to their English colleagues in the Cabinet. I do not know whether it is their love of office, but they let their country down and do not get the things which ought to be obtained for Scotland. I do not know that the present occupant is much worse than some of his predecessors.

Mr. Gallacher: Faust.

Mr. Stephen: I am not in the least bit enthused about this Ministerial adviser, this nosey-parker as the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) described him,


which the Minister is to have. In a sense he has an individual like that at the present time. There have been occupants as Permanent Secretaries and Under-Secretaries, men like Sir John Lamb or Sir John Jeffrey and others, and presumably there is going to be the same office under the new machinery. But as I see it there is this difference. These Departments in the future are going to be more definitely Departments with effective heads than was the case when Sir John Lamb and Sir John Jeffrey were recognised as the heads. In the future that will not be the case, and I can see the head of a Department saying that he is the head of the Department and going to the Minister and saying, "You have listened to Mr. So-and-So. I told you that it was necessary we should take this line but instead of taking the advice of your responsible head you have taken other advice." The Secretary of State will say—if it is a question as to the boundary between the Education and the Home Department—"Do not get excited. The other Department has an interest in this and I have to take account of the view of the Department in the interests of good government."
I can see many difficulties arising, and if the new proposal is to be effective it will become effective only by this new Department becoming a separate supervising department; in spite of all the warnings given in the report of the Committee. The Minister would have been better advised, having decided upon this change in administration, to have had sufficient belief in himself, sufficient self-respect, to make up his mind that he was capable of taking a decision on the advice tendered him by the heads of the respective Departments without the interposition of some clever member of the Civil Service who is going to be there behind him as the real power behind the Throne. I want to see the Secretary of State for Scotland with such self-respect that he himself is going to be the government of Scotland, the head of the department, and not some civil servant such as is contemplated in this machinery. The fact that the present occupant of the office is willing to put into this Measure this individual shows that he has not the strength, he does not consider himself as having the ability, that he is not likely to be an individual who will be able to face the English

members in the Cabinet and see that Scotland gets a square deal.
The needs of Scotland are greater to-day than ever before. The drift of industry to the South and the utter incapacity of the Scottish Office to deal with these matters, show that there is a very pressing need for a strong Secretary of State who will realise that we are reaching a position when definite steps must be taken on a more extensive scale than is proposed in the Bill. In fact, they are only office-boy alterations that are proposed in the administration of Scotland. That is practically all that the Bill amounts to, but I hope the Secretary of State will take heed and see to it that a committee is appointed which will go into the whole needs of Scotland and put before him and the country proposals which will enable us to deal comprehensively with the better government of Scotland.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Barr: This is one of a series of Measures which we welcome, a series of Measures which always excite new expectations, Measures which we cannot oppose as they may be of considerable benefit in the matter of machinery and administration, but Measures which do not really grapple with the greater problems of the government of Scotland and the administration in Scotland. I remember the first of these series of Measures when a new title was given to the Secretary for Scotland, as he was then known. He was raised to the status, which carried with it new emoluments, of Secretary of State for Scotland, and in the Press of Scotland high expectations were held out that this would solve all the impending problems in Scotland, and that there was no need to advocate any further schemes of devolution or dealing with the government of Scotland at all. These exectations were held and were put forward on various grounds, but really nothing happened. The next stage in this legislation was when Boards were replace by Departments; that was in the Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland) Bill, 1928, and again a rather rosy picture was drawn of its effect. It was said that it would promote efficiency, that certain economies would be obtained, and that it would give a new interest to the whole subject of administration in Scotland.
I do not deny that greater efficiency has come, or that some small economy


may have been effected, but I must say that no new interest was created in the people of Scotland by the change from Boards to Departments. Many of them knew nothing about it. One thing it did, it concentrated greater power in the hands of the Secretary of State. It gave him great powers to appoint secretaries and officers and inspectors and servants of all grades. Here again we have a Measure which does not relieve the heavy burden which lies on the shoulders of the Secretary of State. It concentrates more powers in his hands. Indeed, the Secretary of State may now use the language used by King James VI in 1607, when he wrote here in London:
This I must say for Scotland, and may truly vaunt it. Here I sit and govern it by the pen; I write, and it is done; and by a clerk of the Council I govern Scotland now—which my ancestors could not do by the sword.
A Measure like this does not make history; it is not even pretended that it is put forward as a bold or great development in the administration in Scotland. A former Secretary of State for Scotland went down to Callander while he was in that office, and dealt with the suggestion which has been referred to to-day, that greater power might be given to the Scottish Grand Committee and that its meetings might occasionally be in Scotland. The answer which he made in his speech on that occasion was that he must have time left—time which could not be taken up with further meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee—to get in touch with opinion in Scotland and to make contacts with the people, and he used these words:
It is a movement of the spirit, a movement of inspiration, we need in Scotland.
That was said by the late Secretary of State for Scotland. We do not get a movement of the spirit in these proposals, however excellent they may be. Some hon. Members will recall the description which Thomas Carlyle, when the French Revolution was proceeding, gave of the Prime Minister of France. Carlyle said:
And now nothing but a solid phlegmatic Monsieur de Vergennes sits there—
Perhaps "solid phlegmatic" may not be applicable to the present Secretary of State—
in dull matter of fact, like some dull public clerk; in him is no remedy, only clerk-like despatch of business according to routine.

With all respect, I think that in this regard we may say of the present Secretary of State
in him is no remedy";
and of this Bill
only clerk-like despatch of business according to routine.
Certainly, we value the proposals as far as they bring the Secretary of State in closer touch with public opinion in Scotland. That was emphasized more than once by the right hon. Gentleman. He spoke of contact with local opinion, of moving along with Scottish public opinion, and of getting in close touch with the opinion of Scotland. That is all to the good. There has long been a demand for closer touch. I will not attempt to go beyond your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, by showing how strong that demand has been from all sides of the House, but I was very much struck by a memorandum issued in connection with the Speaker's Conference appointed on 4th April, 1919, to deal with the congestion of Business in the House. That memorandum was prepared by the Right Hon. Ronald McNeill, and it gained great force from the views that he held in regard to these questions of government. He said:
It was quickly made evident that, so far as Scotland and Wales are concerned, at all events, no scheme would be acceptable which failed to satisfy the sentiment of nationality.
Yet more interesting, in connection with the proposals that have been brought before the House in regard to the Scottish Standing Committee, was a memorandum prepared by Mr. Murray Macdonald—who represented Stirling Burghs, I think—in which he dealt wtih that very proposal. He dealt critically with it, for the proposal was, as is the present proposal, that the Members of Parliament representing Scotland should add this work in Scotland to their present duties in England. As he said, they were to do a double shift; and he made the argument that, as that work was bound to expand, it would be physically impossible for them to carry it out. I am all in favour of having such an experiment tried, but I believe that in the end it will only show the need of what, in the Amendment, is described as
more far-reaching measures.
It has been said several times during the Debate that the present system cannot go on; it gets worse every year.


Reference was made by my right hon. Friend, in moving the Amendment, to the fact that it is physically impossible for the Secretary of State fully to discharge the many onerous duties that are laid upon him; and my right hon. Friend referred to the experience of Mr. Munro, who was Secretary for Scotland, and who is better known now as Lord Alness. He made a pronouncement in the House on 16th April, 1920. I will not quote that part of it in which he showed how, in all parties, there had grown up the desire for what is known as Devolution or Scottish Home Rule; but he went on to consider the difficulties, and he showed how the opinion had grown on him that:
The endeavour by the Minister to control a number of Boards "—
now Departments—
which are situated 400 miles from London, in addition to discharging the ordinary Parliamentary and Departmental duties which fall to his lot here, involves a task of difficulty which no one who has not had actual experience of it can comprehend."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1920; col. 2069, Vol. 127.]
It is by consulting the opinion of Scotland, by consulting the opinion of a country such as Scotland is—as will be now more fully done, but not, as the Amendment says, done to the full—that one finds that talisman and enchanter's wand for the rule of minorities or of countries that are in alliance and in cooperation, and incorporated with a country such as this. In 1927, when I was passing through Australia, in Granville, New South Wales, an Australian said to me:
We need no argument in Australia to convince us not merely of the utility but of the absolute necessity and inevitability of every nation managing its own affairs.
To that I would add only one tribute, which I dare say might be confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The Very Reverend Dr. Morrow, Moderator of the Irish Presbyterian Church, speaking of what had taken place in that country, both in the North and South, said:
It had to be admitted that the expectations of the most optimistic had been more than realised. One had only to take a motor run through the country to see the improvement everywhere that had taken place in Irish agriculture.
During the War, much was made of the position of small nations. Mr. Asquith declared that the sword would not be

sheathed until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe were placed on an unassailable foundation; and in the Statement of the War Aims of the Allies, on 10th January, 1917, it was said that they sought:
the organisation of Europe on the basis of respect for nationalities, and on the right to full security of liberty and economic development possessed by all peoples small and great.
They professed the faith of Goldsmith—
States of native liberty possessed, Though very poor, may yet be very blest.
As the War went on, those small nations and their rights fell on evil days, because of military exigencies, because of the departure from avowed principles, because of the jealousy of the Powers themselves, because of the desire to penalise the enemy and vivisect his country. In recent days, they have fallen into still more dire misfortunes, for the policy of the dictatorship States has been to bring—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is now going far beyond the question of the reorganisation of Scottish Offices.

Mr. Barr: I apologise, Sir. I simply wanted to make the point that there does not seem to be a glimmer of thought in these countries that it is by consulting the public opinion of the country and seeking to act in concert with it—as the Secretary of State said—that one finds a happy co-ordination of government. I close by saying that these things will not always be. In a settled world, dominated by law and right, the smallest peoples, whether existing by themselves or otherwise, will be able, as Mazzini said:
to place their stone on the rising pyramid of human progress.
Given a Measure such as this, given that further advancement that is foreshadowed in the Amendment, our country of Scotland will more worthily be able to place her stone—yea, I would say her many stones—on the rising pyramid of human advancement.

6.43 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The hon. Member for Coatbridge (Mr. Barr) gave us the benefit of his wide and almost unique reading when he reminded us of a quotation in which there occurred the words:
The despatch of business"—

Mr. Gallacher: "According to routine."

Mr. Stewart: According to routine, if you like. He appeared to use that phrase to belittle the value of this Bill. But surely its chief purpose is just to expedite the despatch of business. No policy can be advanced or carried out without there being an efficient machine with which to do so. Hon. Members on all sides of the House recognise that the present machine is, I will not say chaotic, for that would be an exaggeration, but is certainly archaic, spread over a number of buildings scattered about Edinburgh and London, some of them being very uneconomic and inefficient places of business. It is a machine which has caused a great deal of unnecessary delay and duplication. Of course, this is a small Measure, but it is a very important small Measure, and I welcome it without any hesitation. I would like to join with those hon. Members who have offered compliments to the Secretary of State, to the right hon. Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour) and others who took part in framing this Measure. It will be something worthy of Scotland to have this great new building on the Calton Hill and to see our offices assembled there and working according to the most modern methods. If my right hon. Friend could adopt a suggestion which has been made by myself and others, and add to that magnificient new edifice, an official residence for the Secretary of State for Scotland, that would make it a still more attractive proposal.

Mr. Mathers: The Calton Jail Governor's house still stands.

Mr. Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) experienced as we are all experiencing, a good deal of difficulty in speaking to his Amendment. I would like to say a good deal upon it, but I recognise the limits which you, Mr. Speaker, very properly, have laid down. I find myself drawn a good deal to the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment, but for reasons somewhat different from those expressed by him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) said that there was a widespread feeling in Scotland in favour of Home Rule. I think that is a completely groundless suggestion. I cannot see more than a minute fraction of the Scottish people who are

desirous of Home Rule, in the ordinary, accepted sense of the term, at the present time.

Mr. Gallacher: That is a bad sign.

Mr. Stewart: I am stating my own opinion. I take as an illustration of the truth of what I say the number of votes cast for those candidates in recent elections, who have stood for a Home Rule policy. On that basis, it is plain to any unprejudiced man that Scotland does not want a Parliament of its own with all the paraphernalia associated with such a body. On the contrary, Scottish opinion condemns as unnecessary and undesirable what is commonly known as Home Rule. But that is not to say that there is not a considerable demand in Scotland for what the Amendment calls
more far-reaching measures…for the better administration of affairs in Scotland.
I think any Scottish Member would agree that that is so. We are all of one mind on that question. Therefore, I feel very much disposed to support the Amendment, while still being wholly in favour of the Bill. It is not possible for me on this occasion to develop any constructive arguments of my own on that point, but, since the question of the Scottish Grand Committee has been mentioned, it is perhaps permissible for me to comment upon it. I am much interested in the suggestion for giving more work to the Scottish Standing Committee. I myself put forward that proposal in a memorandum to the late Secretary of State, but I see difficulties in the way. One of the difficulties is that of time. All of us serve already on many committees and, with the best of good will on our part, we would find it exceedingly difficult to devote further attention to committee work. We all recognise that the Secretary of State and his junior Ministers are already overwhelmed with work. If they were required to attend further meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee it would be asking the impossible.
I am criticising my own proposal and I admit that I have now less confidence in advancing it to the House. But let us, at least, as has been suggested, have a more effective sounding-board for Scottish opinion than is now available. Let us, in the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling create something more democratic and less


bureaucratic than the existing system. I would submit this proposal to my right hon. Friend, that he should give an opportunity once every year, say, for a week before this House meets, for all Scottish Members to gather in Edinburgh in the historic precincts of Parliament Square, to discuss Scottish affairs publicly in Scotland. That is not Home Rule, but that is giving Scotland what, I think, it urgently wants, namely, a chance to declare its needs, in public, in a properly organised assembly. Our complaint about the present state of affairs is that we have not sufficient opportunities of doing so in this House. Nobody is to blame, because this House, every day and every week, is adding to its responsibilities. I ask my right hon. Friend with the greatest friendliness seriously to consider that proposal. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that his predecessor was sympathetic towards it. At all events, he did not turn it down, but he left office before his mind had been made up upon it.
Reference has been made to the possibility of appointing an additional Under-Secretary. The Committee did not recommend that step, but they brought the proposal to notice and contented themselves with offering it as a suggestion for consideration. We can consider it with the greater freedom in this House because if another Under-Secretary were appointed, he would probably be in another place and therefore none of us is personally involved in the matter at all. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness rather pooh-poohed the suggestion on the grounds that it would not relieve the Secretary of State of any responsibility. I admit that was a fair point to make. But it would relieve the right hon. Gentleman of a vast amount of work and trouble. He has now, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling said, about as much as he can do.

Mr. Buchanan: But there are plenty of applicants for the job.

Mr. Stewart: That is true, but if the right hon. Gentleman had another assistant in his office, I am certain that Scottish business would be dealt with more effectively and more quickly. There are delays now which distress all of us. We do not blame anybody. The Scottish Office is not capable of doing better, but there are delays, and decisions are constantly being postponed. That is only because the staff

and the organisation are not there. I am one of those who support strongly and with confidence a proposal that a further Under-Secretary of State should be appointed.
Something has been said about the Fishery Board. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) said it was a good thing that the Fishery Board should become part of a large Department. I recognise the strength of his argument. Departments are up to date, and boards are somewhat old fashioned. That argument was put with great force by the Committee. But this Fishery Board is a little different from most boards. The fishing industry, as has often been said, is a vital industry in Scotland, and it lives round the Fishery Board. The Committee themselves found that the industry and the public placed the greatest confidence in the board and its officers and they say that the independence of the board is greatly valued. It is true they have one or two criticisms to make, but as I read the report, the bulk of the evidence was in favour of maintaining the Fishery Board. I propose at the appropriate stage to put down an Amendment to maintain the status of the present board. I am not saying now that I intend to press such an Amendment to a Division, because I am in two minds about it. I see the case for a change, but the right hon. Gentleman did not develop the argument on that point and the Lord Advocate when he speaks later may not have time to develop it. I propose to put down an Amendment in Committee in order to raise the issue, so that we may understand exactly what is meant by this change and what safeguards are to be provided for the interests of the fishing industry.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland suggested that the Forestry Commission should be included in one or other of these new Departments. I know that the activities of the Commission have caused a good deal of distress in the Highlands. I know that they have taken land which was thought by many to be unsuitable for forestry and which might, more appropriately, have been kept for sheep. I wonder whether we might have an answer upon this point. I was under the impression that the Department of Agriculture and the Forestry Commission cooperated closely and consulted with each other before any land was purchased by


either body. My recollection was that the Forestry Commission did not purchase sheep land without first consulting the Department of Agriculture. If that is not so, it should be so, and I hope we may have an answer about it. I conclude by saying that the right hon. Gentleman has done a service to Scotland. The democracies are accused of failing to adopt the efficient modern and businesslike methods of the dictators. To-day we are answering that charge by developing, as best we can, modern methods and I wish this Bill and the organisation which it sets up every success.

6.56 p.m.

Mr. Kirkwood: I welcome every opportunity in this House to raise questions affecting Scotland and the new arrangements proposed in this Bill will certainly attract the attention of the inhabitants of my native land to this House to-day. I find that in the year which is just about to close, three days have been devoted in this House to the discussion of Scottish affairs while foreign affairs have occupied about 20 days. If the new arrangement brings the Scottish Office into closer contact with the Scottish people, I shall welcome it wholeheartedly, even though the Secretary of State may require an additional Secretary, which means extra expense. I never quibble about paying a man who renders useful service, and if the appointment of an additional Secretary means that Scottish business will be attended to better than it has been attended to in the past, then it will be worth thousands a year, and Scotland will not grudge it.
If I am not out of order in doing so, I wish to draw attention to the fact that during this year I visited 32 places in the islands of Scotland, and out of the 32 found only 15 capable of approach. It was impossible to enter the other 17. The piers have gone to rack and ruin; in some cases it was only at the risk of his ship that the captain could enter and, even where he could enter, the passengers were only able to land at the risk of their lives. The Scottish Office have been aware of these facts since 1936. Attention has been drawn to them time and time again. I wish to mention the following nine places as those which most need attention: Bunessin, Coll, Struan, Elgoll, Soay, Leverburgh, Carnan, Kallin

and Scotvin. Leverburgh was established by Lord Leverhulme, and if it were any other place in the British Empire, or even outside the British Empire, which individuals were in the habit of visiting questions regarding it would be raised in this House. I told the Secretary of State about it in July and he promised me that he would visit the places. I asked him not to go on a cruiser, as the rest of the Secretaries and Under-Secretaries had done.

Mr. Colville: I went in a cruiser and visited a certain number of places. I landed, with the aid of the cruiser's picket boat, at places which could not otherwise be reached and which were not formerly reached.

Mr. Kirkwood: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that statement, but I still have to get word of the slightest indication of anything being done because he has gone there. Has he made any move? Has he given these people any encouragement? When I think of the conditions in stormy weather, it is a disgrace that the Scottish Office should be doing nothing to assist that hardy, intelligent race, which is being driven out because of the conditions that exist.

Mr. Colville: The hon. Member will be aware of one project, the joining of Benbecula with South Uist by a bridge and roadway. The problem of access entered there largely because Benbecula has no port of any size whereas South Uist has a considerable port. That is a measure which will help the islands considerably.

Mr. Westwood: Does the question of transport come under any of the schemes of reorganisation that are proposed, or is it not a fact that bridges are provided by the Ministry of Transport?

Mr. Colville: In association with the Department of Agriculture, which also assists.

Mr. Kirkwood: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the interest that he has taken in the matter, because the Highlands and Islands are deeply interested in this question. In fact, they are more alive to what may possibly happen as the result of the reorganisation of the Scottish Offices than the Lowlands are. The reason will have to wait for another time, but I ask the Secretary of State, when


considering piers and slipways, to consult those who by experience know the right place, because time and again piers and slipways have been put down in ridiculous places. I hope we shall get this Measure through because everyone seems to be satisfied that it is going to be beneficial to Scotland. I remember one occasion when we sat in Westminster Hall discussing a great extension of Glasgow, which should have been done in Edinburgh, as I understand will be the case in future. Yoker was mentioned in connection with the taking over of the Rothesay Dock, and the chairman spelt it out and asked if he had got the name right. All Scotland realises perfectly well that Englishmen in general are not in a position to judge Scottish affairs and they have no right to be judging Scottish affairs. Look at the situation to-day. We are discussing something that is vital to Scotland, and Scotland is vital to the British Empire. The benches are empty. That is the respect that is paid to Scotland. There are seven regiments of the British Army in Palestine defending the interests of the British Empire, and five of them are Scottish regiments, and this is how we are treated. Millions are voted for Palestine and nothing for Scotland. We may get more attention paid to Scotland, if this Bill passes, than we have got in the past.

7.7 P.m.

Mr. Leonard: I have listened with extreme interest to the explanation given by the Secretary of State with regard to the help to be given to the Permanent Secretary in determining points of difference that may arise between the four organisations to be covered in the Bill. The report lays down quite specifically that:
It is of the essence of the scheme which we contemplate that nothing should be allowed to impair in any way the responsibilities devolving on the four secretaries for the administration of their respective offices.
I have always been an advocate of being able to locate responsibility when matters of difficulty arise. When I turn to a later page, I have not the assurance that the paragraph that I have read gave me, because there I see the following assertions. First of all, it says:
The whole purpose of the arrangement which we suggest is to detach the Permanent Secretary from the actual administration of the Departments and, if provisions such as we

have indicated are made, we consider that there need be no danger of the emergence of a new controlling secretariat.
An earlier passage on the same page says:
We have indicated that minutes will not be addressed to him as a matter of routine by the heads of Department, but this will not preclude these officers from informally seeking his advice"—
that is, seeking the advice, not of the Secretary of State, but of the Permanent Secretary—
and it may be anticipated that when occasion arises they will readily avail themselves of the opportunity of doing so.
Again, with reference to the Permanent Secretary, it states:
He should be able to call for departmental files or, subject to the approval of the head of the department concerned, arrange for the preparation of memoranda by officers of the department regarding questions with which he is dealing.
I am rather afraid that, by ringing the changes on this to me seemingly contradictory position, he will be able effectively to be a substitute for the Secretary of State himself and, because of that, I do not take kindly to the position with regard to the Permanent Secretary as laid down in the report and as explained by the Secretary of State. I am rather inclined to the view that the custom will grow that, as the four secretaries of the defined Departments gain familiarity with the Permanent Secretary, they will go to him as the easiest and perhaps the more intimate contact for guidance in their difficulties, and that in my opinion is not desirable.
We are informed that under the new scheme there is to be a secretary for what is now to be called the Home Department, there is to be one for education, one for health and one for agriculture. In previous years I have made endeavours to protect what I looked upon as what should be the status of the Secretary of State, and I directed to the proper authorities certain questions which disclosed that there is only one official of administrative rank up to the present. These four Departments are going to have functions of such importance that we are entitled to look upon them as being suitable material for the appointment of administrative as against executive grades. If they are appointed from administrative grades they can be taken from Scottish officials at present functioning there and, if that is not possible, they


should be drawn from Scottish universities. Another question dealing with the personnel of the higher staffs of the Civil Service makes it clear that the administrative sections are taken in the main from Cambridge and Oxford. If I remember aright, there was only one taken from a Scottish University, or perhaps two.
Apparently the Home Department will include within its jurisdiction the Fishery Board and the Prisons Department, and the Secretary of State was quite right when he said that those Departments had in their teaching the well-being of 5,000,000 people, but I do not think that that covers all the interests of the people of Scotland. Why is it not possible to consider the most clamant and outstanding need, that industries should be protected and co-ordinated? You have a Trade Development Council which has prepared a report dealing with afforestation—a report which will be taken up and considered by a Scottish Department under the new scheme. But there will be no department capable of dealing with iron and steel. There will be a section of the machinery now in building to deal with agriculture, but there will be none to deal with shipbuilding. There will be a point to which you can direct fishery problems, but none to which you can direct problems dealing with, for instance, the textile industry, one of the most important things in Scotland, especially as we anticipate Highland industries coming to the fore. Then there are roads and electricity, but these have no point in Scotland to which you can direct your attention, and, in my ouinion, there are other factors in the well-being of Scotland which should have a specific Scottish point of administration to which to direct their problems.

Mr. Colville: Is the hon. Member suggesting that the Minister of Transport should hand over its duties in Scotland to the Scottish Office, and the Board of Trade the same, that there should be a Scottish Board of Trade, or is he suggesting some other point of contact in connection with these Departments in Scotland?

Mr. Leonard: I say definitely that I should have Departments with specific duties; that there should be in Scotland,

for instance, a Department of Trade specifically looking after Scottish industry as such. If the right hon. Gentleman directs his attention to other countries, he will find there that the Ministries of Trade are fast becoming the most important offices in those countries, and if that be the case elsewhere, I am of the opinion that the Board of Trade in England has too wide interests to be able to bother about considering the difficulties of Scottish trade and commerce. Therefore, I am of the opinion that an effort should be made in the future to see that Scottish trade shall have a Department of a Scottish character to attend to these Scottish matters.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: I want to support the Amendment, although we cannot discuss its wide ramifications. An administrative Bill of this kind cannot be considered as an abstraction but must be considered in the light of the conditions that exist in Scotland at the present time, as the previous speaker has said, not just in the light of the conditions in the agricultural or the fishing areas, or the health necessities of the people, but in the light of the full economic, social, and cultural life of the people. These have all to be taken into account when we are considering this administrative Measure, and the Secretary of State knows, as does everyone else, the deplorable conditions that exist in district after district in Scotland. The housing conditions, the mass unemployment, the malnutrition, the diseases among children—all of these things have to be taken into account when we are considering a Measure of this kind. The new building that is dealt with in the report is, we are told, built on the Calton Hill, but it is actually built on the site of the old Calton Gaol. The old Calton Gaol was the most depressing and deadening institution that ever existed in Scotland, and this new Government building is built on its site.

Mr. Colville: A good change.

Mr. Gallacher: Will there be a change? That is the important thing. Will this new building continue the depressing, deadening character that the old building had? The mere fact that you have clean stone and that the rooms are to be used for other purposes does not mean that there will be a change of spirit and character, and I am very much concerned


about it, because when you take these Departments into account—the Departments of Health, Agriculture, and so on—there is an enormous field of work for them, but will they have the necessary freedom to carry out that work? Reference has been made to the Permanent Secretary—the brake on the wheel. It is quite possible, and very probable, that this Permanent Secretary can be responsible for deadening everything in the new organisation in Scotland. You have these various Departments, the Health, Agriculture, Education, and Home Departments. What an enormous amount of work they have to do, and what an enormous expenditure of energy and of cash there must be, if they are to overtake the problems that confront them in carrying out their administrative duties; but when they undertake duties that will necessitate an expenditure of energy or money, they will have to come to the Secretary of State.
Will any Member in this House, or will the Secretary of State, or will the Under-Secretary get up and tell us that it is possible to visualise a situation in which, when the head of a Department wants to go on certain lines in advancing the work of his Department and the welfare of the Scottish people, this Permanent Secretary will advise that the Department should go farther? The Permanent Secretary on every occasion will advise caution and going slowly. As a matter of fact, with this Permanent Secretary, as has been pointed out already, the Secretary of State ceases to be a Secretary of State. I interjected, while the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) was speaking, that the right hon. Gentleman would be a Faust. He will be a Faust with a very evil counsellor continually at his ear, whispering "Go slow; you are going too fast." In no circumstances will you ever find this Permanent Secretary advising the Minister that the Departments are not going far enough or quickly enough, and I say that this substitution of a Permanent Secretary standing between, as he must stand between, the Minister and the heads of the Departments is very dangerous.
Take the report of the Committee. Here you have an effort made by a Committee that is anxious to advise on the administrative work of Scotland, but as the right hon. Member for West Stirling

(Mr. Johnston) says in his note to the report, it is unfortunate that the terms of reference were not much wider and that they had not an opportunity of dealing with much bigger questions. But within the terms of reference, what do we get? We get an effort made to reorganise the Departments, and that is very good in itself, but the report says:
The Minister, therefore, will normally be separated by 400 miles from his responsible advisers.
After making that statement, the Committee do the fanciest piece of roller skating that I have ever witnessed, getting all around and about that question all the time, dodging the fact that the important thing, if this institution in Scotland is to be alert, active, and really progressive, is that it is not a Permanent Secretary here, holding back the Minister, that is wanted, but it is a Minister who can be as often as possible at that institution, in continual consultation with the heads of the Departments and by that means seeing to it that everything possible is done to develop these Departments and to encourage them in carrying out the great mass of work that must be allotted to each of them. I therefore suggest that in dealing with this Bill on Committee we should try to get Amendments, first to eliminate the Permanent Secretary and then to ensure that the Secretary of State shall be as often as possible in continual personal association and consultation with the heads of the Departments, his principal advisers.
The Committee goes on to talk about the new methods, the much easier methods, of communication, but it has to admit that even with the telephone and the various other methods of communication, there is nothing that can equal or compensate for the loss of personal association between the Minister and the heads of the Departments. Therefore, I would call attention to this as the essential factor, if this new administrative change is to be carried out effectively. I am sorry that we cannot discuss the ramifications of the Amendment, because I believe that at present there is a big opportunity for making a very big step towards Scottish Home Rule, a new step in the devolutionary process much bigger than this, but I am sure the administrative changes can only develop as you want them to develop if, instead of a Permanent Secretary who will be a brake on the wheel, we have the Secretary of State for Scotland in


continual and close association with the heads of his Department.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Mathers: The Secretary of State, in introducing this Bill to-day, indicated that in his judgment it was a Bill which was part of a process of evolution. He also made the claim for it that it carried out big administrative changes. I want to say, with regard to his statement that it was part of a process of evolution, that the usual opinion with regard to evolution is that it is a purely natural process and a process that is very slow. In human affairs we should not require to depend entirely upon purely natural processes, but we should be able to assist and accelerate that evolution. With regard to his statement that big administrative changes will be effected by this Bill, I must say that, from my reading of the Bill, a Bill which covers six pages of text relating to the Measure itself and another six pages of a Schedule indicating what Acts of Parliament will be amended and set aside in certain respects, I do not see that this Bill will carry through any great administrative changes.
I am sure that the speech with which the right hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill to-day will read well, and that if anyone does not read between the lines it will make it appear as though this were a big step forward in administrative changes in Scotland. The discussion that has already taken place, even under the limited conditions laid down in the Debate, has followed the lines to a great extent of what the right hon. Gentleman experienced when he brought before the House his last Bill dealing with housing. It was introduced with an indication that it was of great importance and would make great changes, but before it had survived its Second Reading and Committee stages the criticisms levelled against it had made it look very small. The experience with regard to this Bill is of similar character. In reading this Bill I came to the opinion that the word "bureaucracy" is writ very large in its pages.
I almost feel inclined to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for the crudeness of the interjection that I made when he was speaking about the Permanent Secretary. I made the suggestion that he would be one who would make up the mind of the Secretary of State. What I had in mind

was that, having seen administration carried on and taken part in it in a small way, I know what happens when someone comes into a position such as that which will be occupied by the new Permanent Secretary. Such an official becomes to a great extent the keeper of the conscience of the person who is nominally in charge of the Department. This new Permanent Secretary will build himself more firmly into the administration than the Secretary of State could hope to do, because before very long he will be transferred to another place. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh!"] I am not entitled to make mention of the House of Lords in this House, but that is the place to which I am referring. The Permanent Secretary will be the person who will get built into the administration, who will set up and guide the traditions that will become in time binding upon future Secretaries of State. Secretaries of State change, but permanent officials continue, and they will make their presence felt in the conditions that will be created by the reorganisation under this Bill.
It was good news to hear, because of certain suggestions to the contrary, that that large and, as we hope, handsome building on the Calton site will house the whole of the Departments for which it was intended. When that building was contemplated I put a question to the First Commissioner of Works asking whether there would be provided a chamber in which Scottish Members of Parliament could meet as a Scottish Parliament to consider matters concerning the welfare of Scotland. I was told that that had not been contemplated, and I am afraid that before that change comes, as it eventually will, we shall require to have another building or to use a building which we have at present and which will serve the purpose. May I ask the Lord Advocate whether the name of the building on the Calton site has been decided? It is near a railway station, and I suggest that it might be called Waverley House. That would bring a great Scotsman once again into prominence and it would be an appropriate name for the building.
I have wondered why the Secretary of State did not have more confidence in the Scottish Members and did not take his opportunities more seriously and cause this Bill to go much further along the road of administrative efforts that will be beneficial to our country. He must have forgotten, if indeed he ever


learned, that a Scotsman's middle name is "dependability." Surely he knows that, and when he is preparing for some of the Burns' orations that he will no doubt be delivering during January, I commend him to go and get chapter and verse for that statement in a poem that was written by Robert Burns to the Scottish Members of this House. I am sure the words will be familiar to him:
Auld Scotland has raucle tongue;
She's just a devil wi' a rung;
An' if she promise auld or young to tak their part,
Tho' by the neck she would be strung, She'll no desert.
We all know the dependability and reliability of the Scot once he has made up his mind. I consider that is an appropriate quotation to make in the House at this time, because it was written when Robert Burns was able to describe the Government of his day as
Yon mixtie-maxtie, queer hotch-potch, the 'Coalition'.
I support the Amendment that has been moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), and I would have been willing to support the much stronger Amendment which he wished to have discussed. The Secretary of State has missed the opportunity in this Bill of doing much for Scotland that would have removed many of the disabilities from which we suffer. Why is it that in Aberdeen we sometimes find it impossible to have fish? Why is it that in Aberdeenshire we find it impossible to get the best beef that the county provides? Why is it that in the Lothians and the Border country we cannot have the best mutton, and that in Oban we cannot get the lobsters that are caught near there? It is because of the London market. I want to see the Scottish administration guiding these things into channels that will result in their consumption in Scotland.
It is not only products of that kind that the London market absorbs. When we look at that part of London which may to some extent be called the hub of the city—Trafalgar Square—what is the most prominent thing we see? Is it Nelson's Monument, or the National Gallery, or the Spire of St. Martin's Church, or the equestrian statute of Charles I? No, it is the advertisement of a certain product of Scotland that was born on a certain date and is still going strong. When we

come to London and to this House we have to thole a thing like that. The Secretary of State might have taken the opportunity of this Bill to relieve us of some of these things. When we come to this House we find ourselves having to understand quite a number of dialects that are foreign to us. We find on occasion Members, in particular on the Government side, whose erudition causes them to interpret things to us in Latin and Greek. The position in which many of us want to be is such that we can have our deeper feelings and our illustrations expressed in the homely language of our own country. In listening to some of these contributions to the Debates in this House it is "whiles ill to bide." At home in Scotland we have to thole much more serious things than that.
There is nothing in this Bill to prevent our having to endure these disabilities. There is nothing that will stop the drift of industries south. There is nothing that will accelerate house building, that will provide more work, that will resist the ravages of deer over a great part of Scotland, or that will preserve the land of Scotland for the production of more food. There is nothing that meets the land hunger which is represented by thousands of unsatisfied applications for small-holdings.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot go on indefinitely enumerating what is not in the Bill.

Mr. Mathers: I pay all due deference to your Ruling, but I am afraid that what you have done is simply to puncture my peroration. I have nearly completed my list of things that this Bill does not do. The last item is one that is connected with my own constituency. I do not see the possibility in this Bill of assisting us to build the Forth Road Bridge. The right hon. Gentleman has already claimed some credit for work carried out by the Ministry of Transport, and here was an opportunity, if he is entitled to make such a claim, to provide himself with a great chance, Above all, there is nothing in this Bill to help us in the attack upon poverty. I think that the Bill, while it does take us one step along the road, a long road, towards greater freedom for the Scottish people, will not be looked upon by historians as a very big step along that road, and there is much that we still have to do before we shall


have the freedom to look after our own affairs for which we are striving.

7.45 P.m.

Mr. McLean Watson: I cannot hope to emulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) in eloquence and enthusiasm, nor can I quote poetry in the same way as my hon. Friend. He is an adept at that sort of thing, but I must confess that it is beyond me, and I must confine myself to prosaic and mundane affairs and to a short discussion of the matter that is under consideration. We have had an interesting discussion in which two ex-Secretaries of State for Scotland and one Under-Secretary of State have taken part, and they have given us the benefit of their experiences in the Scottish Office at various times. Some things have become very clear during this discussion. One is that those who are in charge of Scotland's affairs are very much overworked and that something must be done to speed up the machinery of government in Scotland. The first thing I want to do is to welcome this Measure, not so much for what is in it as for what has caused this Measure to be introduced. A new building is being erected on Calton Hill for the housing of all the Scottish Departments, and that is a desirable thing. Those of us who have had to go to the Departments in Edinburgh have never felt any pride in entering any of them. I think the most respectable is the Department of Agriculture. Of the others, none is impressive either from the outside or the inside. Whether it be the place in Princes Street, which has one single door as an entrance, or the place on the Grass Market, none of these places is suitable for the Government Departments in Scotland.
Every Scotsman or Scotswoman will welcome the erection of the new building on Calton Hill, whatever it may be called. There has been some little discussion in Scotland over the naming of it. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow has suggested a name which I had not heard before—Waverley House. I do not know whether it is because he served for a time in Waverley Station when associated with the railway. I have seen it suggested that it should be called Scotland House, or Edinburgh House—there are plenty of names. Perhaps the Lord Advocate will take us into his confidence to-night and tell us what the

building is to be called. However, we are all pleased that it has been erected, because it is high time that the various Government Departments in Scotland were housed in one decent building in Scotland.
From both sides of the House I have heard speeches suggesting that great things will accrue from the passing of this Measure. Frankly, I cannot see that any great things will accrue. What we are discussing is a piece of machinery, a slight change from the machinery which has been governing Scotland up to the present time, and that is all. There is no proposal that new powers should be vested in those who are to administer affairs in Scotland, no provision for any additional expenditure for the development of Scotland. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) that greater powers ought to have been given to the Scottish Office than are contained in this Measure. As he rightly pointed out, there are functions performed in Scotland by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Transport which properly should have been handed over to the Scottish Office. As my hon. Friend the Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard) pointed out, there is a provision for Scottish fisheries to be kept under the control of the Scottish Office, and for agriculture being kept under its control; but there are other important industries in Scotland which might just as correctly have been placed under the administration of the Scottish Office. It is just because in some bygone day Scottish representatives recognised in fishing and in agriculture two industries which ought to be specifically mentioned as requiring the attention of the Scottish Office that some attention is given to them by the Scottish Office. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) referred to his sympathy with our Amendment, but did not say that he was prepared to support it in the Division Lobby.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I am going to do so.

Mr. Watson: I am glad to hear that the hon. Member has made up his mind to support the Amendment, because I agree with him that much more should have been done in a Measure which is supposed to deal with the more efficient government of Scotland. He said that more work ought to have been given to


the Scottish Standing Committee and that at least once a year it should assemble in Edinburgh, if only for one week. He did not indicate what the Committee would be discussing during that' week. There is one matter of Scottish administration which has not been mentioned and to which I shall refer in passing, and that is the Committee which deals with private legislation procedure. Unless that was the subject to be discussed by the Scottish Standing Committee I do not know what subject they should discuss when assembled in Edinburgh.

Mr. Stewart: I intended that the Committee should discuss all Scottish subjects which they thought relevant.

Mr. Watson: If the Committee were to discuss all Scottish subjects that were relevant they would require to sit in Edinburgh for much longer than one week. The Committee appointed under the Scottish private legislation procedure occupies a week in discussing one Provisional Order, one subject affecting one burgh or district in Scotland. The hon. Member for East Fife would have to be a little more explicit about what he regards as suitable work for the Scottish Standing Committee when meeting in Edinburgh before we could agree to such a proposal. I should like to see the Scottish Standing Committee meeting in Scotland not for a week but for two or three months to discuss purely Scottish affairs, and to discuss them in detail. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling suggested on one occasion, even the Scottish Estimates could be discussed in some detail in the Scottish Standing Committee.
I do not intend to take up time in discussing the question of the Permanent Secretary. Personally, I have no great feeling against a Permanent Secretary being appointed. It may be a good thing to have a Permanent Secretary, provided that he does not usurp the position of the Secretary of State, because if there were any danger of that such an appointment would not be for the good of Scottish administration. But I have no particular objection to there being a Permanent Secretary, a man to whom the Secretary of State can turn for consultation and advice because I am prepared to admit that the Secretary of State cannot possibly of his initiative and industry acquaint himself with all those details of his office on which he needs to be informed, and a

Permanent Secretary could be a useful part of the machinery of government in Scotland.
As I have said, I look upon this Bill as simply another piece of machinery. Scotland will not be very much affected by what we are discussing this afternoon. There will be no improvement in the Highlands and Islands, and we shall still be indebted to a body of private gentlemen, the Scottish Development Council, for looking after the industrial and commercial development of Scotland, indebted to those private individuals when steps ought to have been taken to ensure that the Scottish Office would play a very much larger part in dealing with the industrial and commercial status of Scotland. We welcome the Measure, but I look upon it as mere machinery, and why my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) expects that we shall have great developments because of a mere change in the governmental machinery is more than I can understand. Unless we find the Scottish Office able to wring more money from the Treasury, the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs will go many more times to the Western Isles before he sees much change there, and the crofters of the Highlands and Islands will still find themselves in the same position as they have been in for years and years, receiving an annual visit from the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary and usually getting promises of what will be done on their behalf, but left with little or no improvement in their position. We are not opposing the Bill, but we regard it as only a slight improvement on the methods which have been followed up to the present time.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Davidson: I listened very attentively to the speech of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I trust that all hon. Members who heard it will have taken note of the reasons he gave for bringing forward this piece of legislation. I would draw particular attention to his discursive statement of the chaotic conditions in Scottish administration up to the present moment. He told us that the Scottish Secretary was bound to be 400 miles away from Scotland, that the various Departments in the administrative machinery of Scotland had grown up haphazard but that they were nevertheless efficient—probably he meant with a haphazard efficiency. I talk as one who


has had a fair share of the haphazard efficiency of the Scottish Office since I came to this House. The right hon. Gentleman also stated that the Scottish Departments, in their own haphazard way, had managed to fill the bill, but because reorganisation was demanded he was introducing a Measure that would meet the desires of the majority of the people.
This Measure is not one that meets the desires of the Scottish people. It is a Measure to try to stem the ever-growing volume of criticism against maladministration of Scottish affairs from this House of Commons. It is merely a sop thrown to that ever-growing opinion that something must be done to have Scottish affairs discussed adequately and efficiently and with real knowledge of the needs of the Scottish people. What does our Scottish Secretary suggest? That instead of the haphazard arrangement that we have had in the past, instead of officials being 400 miles away, four Departments should now be established in Edinburgh. The main recommendation of the Committee is that the functions of the Scottish Education Department, the Department of Health, the Department of Agriculture and the Prisons Department, that is, the Home Department taking in the Fisheries, should be run by permanent, not elected, officials, with no responsibility but to the Secretary of State.
I would be glad if the Secretary of State accepted responsibility for those Departments, but he is not doing so, because, along with those things, he is also appointing a permanent official. My hon. Friend said that he had no objection to a permanent official being there to advise the Scottish Secretary because he believed that that official might be able to tell him what he did not know and advise him of things of which he was not aware; but Scottish local authorities, such as the county authorities in Scotland and other important Scottish bodies, do not want to meet permanent officials of the Government. They want to meet the man in charge of affairs. No permanent official will be able, or should be able, to satisfy those sections of the Scottish community who desire to consult the Scottish Office and its head with regard to their administrative duties.
It is, therefore, very interesting to consider the flourish with which this Bill has been introduced. I read an article in the "Glasgow Daily Record" some time ago in which a correspondent spoke of this Bill as a great legislative step towards self-government for Scotland. He spent about 500 words in the article showing how the Government were at last dealing with this great problem of giving to the Scottish people a great democratic measure of self-government. He went on to say that the Conservative party had at last taken up this question and were pushing it far more quickly and efficiently than did the Labour Members, who had apparently dropped it. He must have been some correspondent, or else he must have been asleep or must have known nothing of the efforts of hon. Members on this side of the House to obtain a measure of self-government for Scotland; or he must have been completely ignorant of the organisations which we have set up in Scotland, because of the dissatisfaction of the Scottish people, to try to force the Scottish Office to give us a Measure that would at least give to Scottish Members of Parliament a reasonable amount of time in Scotland in the discussion of Scottish affairs.
In answer to a question of mine, the Secretary of State said that this Bill was not a question of self-government for Scotland or of giving to the Scottish people an administrative Measure that would enable them to deal with their own affairs. We have never asked that we should interfere with the affairs of other people. We have never asked for complete separation from the Imperial Parliament. We have never asked that we should ignore great national questions that concern the peoples of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. We have asked only for some reasonable Measure to give us a better method of dealing with our own Scottish affairs, such as the conduct of our Fisheries and other Departments. That has been denied to us.
Let me examine the Bill as it is to-day. It is interesting. Scottish Members may feel rather ashamed that the Secretary of State for Scotland, after many years of Tory Government and many Tory Secretaries of State for Scotland, should make an admission that the affairs of Scotland had been so badly managed in the past that they are in a condition of chaos. The right hon. Gentleman told us that the


Board of Education, over which he had no control, being looked upon only as a vice-president, was under a Council, the last meeting of which was held in 1913. He made many references to the disgraceful state of Scottish administration. When a Minister makes such an admission, after all the years of government of that party and after all their control of Scottish affairs, I am entitled to ask why their own Minister has had to admit failure. The reason he gave was that we were at last removing that state of affairs by bringing in a great piece of legislation. His exact words were that this was the greatest piece of legislation for dealing with Scottish legislation that had been brought in since 1885. Mark you, this is the greatest piece of administrative legislation for Scotland since that time; then, if we read at the bottom of the explanatory and Financial Memorandum we will see these words:
It is anticipated that the extra provision in consequence of the Bill will not exceed £5,000 a year.
So, after the Minister's admission of the completely chaotic condition of Scottish administration he says: "We are going to deal with all this with a great piece of legislation, but it will not amount to more than £5,000 a year."
That is the reason why this Bill means nothing to the Scottish people. The permanent official who is to be appointed as the Secretary of State's Faust is the man who will always be beside him to advise him on this question and on that; but how can he know more than the Secretary of State, the Under-Secretary of State, the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General? The appointment of this permanent official creates, as the Ministry of Labour has done, a buffer between the local authorities of Scotland and the organisations in Scotland who desire immediate and direct consultation with the Scottish Office. The right hon. Gentleman will be here, 400 miles away from Scotland, Scottish Members of Scotland will still have to assemble here, 400 miles away from Scotland, but the appointment of the Permanent Secretary is believed by some hon. Members to mean a great change in Scottish affairs.
Then we have the four Departments, who must consult the Secretary of State. It states here, regarding any recommendations they may make.

a provision in any Act, whereby the Department is required to submit a report to the Secretary of State and the report is required to be laid before or presented to Parliament, shall have effect as if it required the Secretary of State to cause the report to be prepared and to submit it to Parliament.
So, instead of the Secretary of State, the Under-Secretary, or his staff as it exists to-day, submitting a report with regard to some of the items, we are to have a report made up in Edinburgh. It will be sent to the Secretary of State in London and, under the new machinery, the Secretary of State will consult his Permanent Secretary. After doing so, he will place the matter before the House of Commons and we shall discuss it as we have discussed such items before.
This Bill is a piece of bunk; it is a piece of window-dressing. It makes no change in the administrative machinery of Scotland but is brought in to meet the criticism of people who are demanding some measure of support for their ideas that any legislation on their behalf should be passed within their own area and with an understanding of their difficulties. I want to stress the point with regard to the missing out of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Labour. I want also to say a word on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) who cannot be with us to-night. I desire to acquaint the House that my hon. Friend is detained in Edinburgh because of the illness of a very near relative. I think it is only fair to say that on his behalf, because he was very interested in this Measure as a representative of the Highlands of Scotland.
I want to know exactly what change the Bill will mean with regard to any schemes for the Highlands of Scotland. I received from the right hon. Gentleman himself a list of 16 or 17 committees, all dealing with Scottish affairs—Highland economic committees, Scottish Development Council committees, and so on—all in their own little way attempting to bring about some change in the conditions of the Scottish people. That is a chaotic condition of affairs. What is going to happen to those people in the Highlands and in the North of Scotland who will find it even more difficult to deal with permanent officials in Edinburgh, or a permanent official acting as a buffer between the Secretary of State and themselves, than to deal directly with the Department


as it exists to-day? I regret that a complete sweep was not made of these small committees. We want a real change in the administrative machinery of Scotland—something that will give us, near to our own people, a reasonable amount of democracy in Scottish administration, with our Parliament easily accessible to the people of Scotland. We know that then Scottish representatives, who would not be 400 and 600 miles away, but near to their constituents, would not vote many times in the manner in which they vote to-day.
I want to stress the point with regard to the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Transport. In this House to-day you can get one set of figures with regard to Scottish unemployment from the Ministry of Labour; you can get figures from the Scottish Office with regard to Poor Law relief and people who have been swept aside from the Employment Exchanges; you can get figures with regard to the number of unemployed who are obtaining certain reliefs. You have to go from one Minister to another in order to get a fair idea of the dimensions of Scottish poverty, Scottish unemployment or Scottish housing difficulties. The same applies to transport problems, and nowhere is it more important that direct Scottish administrative action should be taken than in the Highlands of Scotland with regard to road transport, because the few people who are left in the Highlands of Scotland, due to the maladministration of this Government and previous Tory Governments, depend to a very large extent on good roads and decent accommodation in the Highlands for the tourist traffic that brings them their livelihood. But here again Scottish Members have to go separately to different Ministers and ask separate questions with regard to Scottish affairs.
If the Scottish Office were really in earnest in regard to bringing about decent Scottish administration, they would not stop at the door of the Treasury; they would not hesitate; they would not be turned away in order to retain their positions in the Cabinet. They would go to the Treasury here and say that, if a complete change, or a decent change, in Scottish administration is wanted, £5,000 a year is absolutely inadequate, and that, for the money which the Scottish people are paying to the national

purse of Scotland, they ought to have more in return, they ought to have better administrative machinery. If the Scottish Secretary ever does that, he will have the whole-hearted support of Members on this side of the House who to-day merely look upon him as one who is trying to placate criticism that will not be met by this niggardly and futile Measure.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. Westwood: The direct and immediate cause of the Bill we are now discussing is not an anxious desire on the part of the Government to reorganise the national administrative work of Scotland, but is directly due to the fact that the new building at Calton Hill is now nearing completion. While I have no enthusiasm for the Bill which has been introduced in the interests of Scottish administration, I am pleased that that building is nearing completion, for it will certainly make national administration in Scotland more effective and more easy. Anyone who has been connected with local administration will know the difficulties of getting in touch with the respective Departments in Edinburgh. It is not that there is any difficulty in getting into friendly contact with the permanent officials, because frankly, as an administrator, I have scores of times preferred to meet the permanent officials of the Civil Service in Scotland rather than meet their political heads, knowing that at all times I should get quite a fair deal from the Civil Service responsible for administration, when sometimes, if I had gone to the political heads, it might have been turned down at the very beginning. My experience of Scottish civil servants is that they are efficient, that they are able, that they know their job; and, if it were not for some of the political heads, Scotland would make further and greater progress, with a Civil Service such as we have at the present time. In trying, however, to meet those heads of Departments, one has had to go to almost all parts of Edinburgh. If one wanted to deal with the many problems connected with local administration, one had to go to the Grassmarket; for housing matters one had to go to George Street, for education matters to Queen Street, for health matters to Princes Street, and for agriculture to York Place; and, when people are giving voluntary service in local administration, it is just a bit too much strain to ask them sometimes to lose two or three


days' work, as I have done in the earlier part of my career, in trying to give real administrative service in Scotland and to get in touch with these different administrative heads in these different buildings. All of this could have been done in a day or in half a day if all the Departments had been housed in one building, as they will be when once the Calton Hill building is completed. I do not welcome the Bill; there is nothing in it to get enthusiastic about—nothing that will really benefit Scottish administration; but I am pleased, as I have said, that at long last we are to have the administrative work of Scotland centred in one building, which will make things much easier both for national and for local administration.
The Bill provides for the appointment of a new permanent official, and during the Debate some doubts have been expressed as to the wisdom of such an appointment. In fact, the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) suggested that the new official was to be the go-slow adviser of the Government. Scotland has produced many geniuses—geniuses in literature, in art and in music, inventive genius, and genius in administration; but even Scotland will never be able to produce a genius that can advise this Government to go any slower than they have been going up to the present. I have no fears in that direction; it would be absolutely impossible to have more slowness in administration than the slowness that has been exhibited to the Scottish people during the last seven years.

Mr. Quibell: They have done the job well.

Mr. Westwood: No; they have not even made a good job of going slow; they have got in the way of the oncoming tide. This Bill only regularises many of the things that are going on at present in Scotland. It does not revolutionise or improve administration in Scotland. Let me give a case in point. It is a matter which has been already referred to by the Secretary of State and by my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson). Those alleged to be responsible for Scottish education have not met since 1913. They did very little between 1908 and 1913. The Education Act, 1908, gave us the foundation on which we are now building our Scottish educational system. That Act was improved by the 1918

Education Act. Perhaps the fact that this body never met is the real reason why Scottish education has made such progress. If they had met they might have thrown something into the works. All that is being done now in connection with education in Scotland is to regularise what has been going on since 1913 at least.
The Bill merely proposes to continue, under a different head, if I may put it that way, the existing Departments in Scotland, including, unfortunately, the Board of Control. It does not make provision for Departments that could be of real value in dealing with Scotland's problems. For instance, unemployment in Scotland is greater than in any other part of the British Isles. The problem of trade is something that requires the greatest consideration, so far as Scotland is concerned. I do not want to see something set up merely because it would be a Scottish Department if it would create real difficulties in connection with British trade. But if it is possble to work the Department of Health in Scotland in conjunction with the Ministry of Health in England in connection with those things that affect the British people in common, and also to work the Department of Agriculture in Scotland in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture in England in the same way, why cannot the same thing be done in regard to trade? There are certain things that affect the British people in common, and they must be considered from a British standpoint. If I understand the scheme of administration, there are consultations between the head of the Department in Scotland and the head of the Department in England, and those things that are common to the British people can be adjusted and administered from the British point of view, while those things that can be best dealt with from the Scottish point of view are dealt with by the Department in Scotland. Surely there could have been a similar scheme devised for dealing with transport and for dealing with trade. We are merely stabilising Departments already in existence, but Scotland will not be satisfied until we get some other Department which can deal with purely Scottish problems. There is room in this Bill for a Scottish Department of Transport and a Scottish Department of Trade. That they are not provided for is one of the objections I have to the Bill.
Also, the Bill continues the Board of Control. Special reference was made to this by the Secretary of State. He referred to a Departmental Committee on which I had the honour of serving for a few years. Surely, if we are going to deal with problems of administration we are entitled to take into consideration not only the evidence submitted to the Departmental Committee dealing with health services, but also the desires of the local authorities in Scotland. I have here a communication from the Secretary of the County Councils Association. He says:
In the view of the Association, the General Board of Control for Scotland should not be continued as a separate body, but should be brought under the Scottish Office, in the same way as the Scottish Education Department is being brought under the Scottish Office by the Bill.
He goes on to quote the Report of the Committee on Scottish Health Services. The Board of Control was set up in 1857. Surely Scotland and the world at large have made some progress in medical science and medical knowledge since 1857. Surely there is room for a different outlook in dealing with the mental diseases that unfortunately afflict so many of our people. That departmental committee did not take evidence merely from two medical men and the Departments directly involved. One has only to look at the Appendix in the Committee's Report, which gives a list of the medical men who gave evidence. They include no fewer than 70 of the greatest medical men in Scotland and England—the greatest physicians and the greatest surgeons. After we had listened for days to the evidence, we came to a unanimous conclusion, the only reservation being on the part of the representatives of the Civil Service, who naturally could not sign the report, because it was dealing with Departments with which they were connected. With that exception, there was a unanimous recommendation in favour of the abolition of the Board of Control, so that mental troubles and the work of dealing with mental troubles should be considered from an entirely different angle under the Department of Health.
Despite differences of opinion between the experts who deal with this problem, we were unanimously of opinion that the right way to deal with the problem would be to consider mental diseases as diseases, just as we consider physical diseases as

diseases, to treat them as one particular problem, and, so far as national administration is concerned, to place the work under the control of the Department of Health. I am an unrepentant subscriber to that same point of view, despite the evidence which was taken by the Committee on Scottish Administration—which could not be so extended as that which we heard. I know it has been mentioned in the Debate that Professor Gray agreed to the report of that committee, but you have only to read the Note by him to appreciate the diffidence with which he signed, and to see all the qualifications and reservations that he has made. They appear on page 57 of the committee's report. Keeping all those facts in mind, I think the Bill might have been more comprehensive than it is. It could have dealt with the problems of Scotland more effectively than this miserable tinkering Bill we have before us.
Why should anyone who represents a Scottish constituency be thankful for a Bill of this kind? This is a farthing per head per year revolutionary Measure for the purpose of giving us these improvements in Scotland. I have done a little elementary arithmetic. I attended an elementary school and I left at 13 because I could not leave earlier. I have tried to divide the £5,000 a year, the financial provision in this wonderful Measure, by 4,800,000, which is said to be the population of Scotland, and it works out at a farthing per head per year. Government supporters seem to be quite well satisfied with the revolutionary proposals which incur the expenditure of a farthing per head per year for the purpose of giving us better administration in Scotland. This Bill will not do it. It is merely regularising things that are already being operated in Scotland. It will not enable Scotland to deal with its problems in the way they should be dealt with by Scottish people, and it does not give the improvements desired by the people of Scotland as far as national or local administration is concerned.

8.37 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. T. M. Cooper): I take it that it is a fair summary of the last four and a-half hours' Debate to say that the only opposition that has been directed against this Bill has come from those whose sole complaint is that it is not a different Bill


altogether. I think that that is a fair summary of the nature of the criticism that has been made, and I admire the agility with which one hon. Member after another has contrived to hover above the forbidden fruit of the topics which were ruled out by you, Mr. Speaker, as irrelevant to the discussion before this House. I cannot pursue these outside topics, and I do not propose to attempt to do so, but it occurred to me that, if Scotland has been the victim of the maladministration referred to so eloquently by certain hon. Members, and notably the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson), it is a little surprising to find, from the interesting figures supplied to us by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), that _the people of England seem to be flocking to Scotland, and particularly to Glasgow, in increasing numbers and apparently finding within our maladministered borders a national home for refugee Englishmen.
I propose to devote the time at my disposal to a serious examination of the half-dozen points of difficulty which have emerged from this discussion and on certain of which some slight misconceptions prevail. I take the points in the order in which the topics have arisen in the course of the Debate. In the opening speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling, and in a number of subsequent speeches, including that of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood), reference was made to the absence from the Bill of any provision for the absorption within the orbit of the Scottish Office of the functions in Scotland discharged by such ministries as the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Transport. If my memory serves me rightly these were the two Departments specially mentioned. [An HON. MEMBER: And the Forestry Commission."] There is a statutory provision, which, I believe, is strictly enforced—but the point has been noted—which requires the Forestry Commissioners, before they either acquire or sell land, to consult the appropriate agricultural Department. I believe that that is done, but I have not had an opportunity since the right hon. Gentleman spoke of verifying the point. However, I have noted it. There ought to be no room for the clashing and competition of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke, and I

hope that it is not the case. As regards the other two Departments—again my right hon. Friend notes the points that have been made—it is obvious to the House that I cannot express a view on such major topics here and now, but I suggest for the consideration of hon. Members that in dealing with the matter it is a little difficult to imagine a Ministry of Labour for Scotland and a Ministry of Labour for England by whatever name you call them, so long as labour and employers' organisations are organised on a basis which ignores these geographical limits. Hon. Members will see at a glance that there are many considerations which weigh on both sides of an argument of that kind.

Mr. Davidson: Is the Lord Advocate aware that many employés' organisations have definite Scottish committees with powers?

The Lord Advocate: That may well be. I am not attempting to cover the ground more fully than merely to indicate that there is a major difficulty of organisation which would have to be faced before the suggestion which has been voiced could be made effective. Similarly with regard to the Ministry of Transport, I would only observe in passing, and I do not need to do more, that the organisation of our railways and indeed of our roads, is not on a basis which recognises a geographical division. The railways, as the House is aware, were reorganised in 1921 on a different basis altogether.

Mr. Kirkwood: Shipbuilding and engineering is the same.

The Lord Advocate: Accordingly, from many standpoints, I leave the matter with the simple observation that there is a great deal to be said for the existing system as against the modification which was suggested by certain of the speeches which alluded to this matter. I cannot pursue that, and I pass on to three topics which bulk largely in the speeches of right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen. I take first the Board of Control, and in relation to that topic I am in a position of almost judicial detachment because the right hon. Gentlemen who opened for the Opposition supported the Gilmour Committee and the retention of the Board of Control, while his colleague who wound


up the Debate for the Opposition supported the Health Services Committee and the abolition of the Board of Control. The position, therefore, is one which I might describe as Stirlingshire versus Stirling Burghs. As far as the attitude of the Government to the Committee is concerned, I would put it thus: This question has been anxiously examined by a very expert Committee, for whose deliberations and for the permanent records they provided of the history and development of our Scottish administration and institutions we are all very grateful indeed. It has been carefully examined by that body which entered upon the field with the Report of the Health Services Committee before them and which included in its numbers one member who was a member of both Committees.
Accordingly, the Gilmour Committee were in the position of an appellate tribunal reviewing with additional evidence a decision which had already been pronounced by another tribunal. As a result of that they reached a certain conclusion. Since the report of the Gilmour Committee the question has been examined afresh by my right hon. Friend, and while it is manifestly a question on which there are weighty considerations on both sides, my right hon. Friend has decided that the recommendation of the Gilmour Committee should be adopted. That is the view which has been embodied in the Bill, and on that the Government take their stand.
As far as I am personally concerned, I gave evidence before the Gilmour Committee on this subject, and I should like to say to the hon. Member who spoke last, who stressed very much the importance of this question in relation to the health of the mental defectives and the lunatics, that in practical administration one has to give the fullest possible weight not only to the liberty of the subject, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and the committee referred, but also to a consideration which is too often lost sight of, and that is the safety of the public. I mean the safety of those who, unfortunately, may fall a victim to the criminal or semi-criminal acts of those who are mentally defective or insane. Looking at the matter from the standpoint of the special experience that I have gained, I feel that the balance

is in favour of adopting the course advocated by the Gilmour Committee, because this highly delicate and semi-judicial function seems to be more appropriate for a body such as the board of control than for a Government Department, or a Minister subject to special pressure and to other exceptional considerations which are not applicable in the case of the Board of Control.
As the House is probably aware, the substantive question of the statutory provisions relating to mental defectives and lunatics is being considered by a committee presided over by Lord Russell. They are at present actively engaged on that task, and I fully anticipate that as a result of the deliberations of that committee changes, possibly drastic changes, may be proposed in regard to the lunacy laws and the mental deficiency laws of Scotland, particularly in that portion of them which overlaps the field of criminal administration. With that possibility in view, I think the proposals of the Gilmour Committee regarding the Board of Control are particularly valuable, for it is very important that a body composed as they propose should be settled in the saddle before the time comes for examining and possibly legislating for alterations relating to the law affecting lunacy and mental defectives.
I now come to the question of the fisheries, and I should like to inform the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), who raised a question in regard to this point, that the status and salary of the secretary of the new fisheries division will be unaffected by the administrative proposals and the legislative proposals which my right hon. Friend outlined in introducing the Bill. One part of the report of the Gilmour Committee which I would stress, is that which points out that there is an optimum size for a Government Department. You may have a Government Department too big, and I think all of us have thought that that possibly has been the fault of some Departments which we could name, whereas others are too small, and that is the fault from which the Fishery Department has suffered. If you have a Government Department which is too small it may be incapable of gathering together the personnel and the experience which enable a Government Department to function efficiently.
If I read the report aright, and if I judge from the expert advice which I have had the opportunity of studying, that is one of the main considerations which justifies the adoption of the proposals which the Gilmour Committee advanced in their report. When that consideration is looked at, alongside the other proposal to provide a Fisheries Advisory Council, I think the net result of the proposals now being embodied in the Bill will be to preserve all the advantages of the status quo, and at the same time to secure the prospect, I think the certainty, of increased efficiency and smoothness in administrative operations in the future.
Lastly, I come to the question of the Permanent Secretary, and I should like to stress what I think was not fully appreciated by certain hon. Members who addressed themselves to this problem. There are two considerations. First, there is and there has been since at least 1885 a Permanent Under-Secretary for Scotland. The hon. Member for Mary-hill (Mr. Davidson), if I understood his speech aright, indicated that, according to his conception, one of the provisions of the Bill was to introduce a permanent Under-Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Davidson: I stressed the Secretary of State's own words in regard to the chaotic condition of Scottish administration, and his assumption that bringing in this Bill will mean a wonderful change.

The Lord Advocate: I do not want to be drawn off by an argument across the Floor, but the hon. Member's reference to the chaotic state of Scottish administration or to any alleged admission by my right hon. Friend of the existence of such a chaotic state, must be due to some misapprehension. If the hon. Member is thinking of the fact that a theoretical Committee of the Privy Council presiding over Scottish education has not met since 1913, he has apparently failed to appreciate my right hon. Friend's real point, namely, that in form Scottish education was controlled by a Committee which never met, but in fact and in substance it was controlled by himself and his predecessors in office as Secretary of State for Scotland. I do not hesitate, in the presence of my right hon. Friend, to repudiate any admission on his part or on my part that the administration of Scotland either in that

respect or in any other is in any way chaotic.

Mr. Davidson: Haphazard.

The Lord Advocate: What is haphazard about the existing state of Scottish administration are its accidental features, which arise from the historic growth and development of the system. If the hon. Member would take the Committee's report home to-night and read it he would find that in the development of our system we began with a system of boards, but they have all disappeared, except the Board of Control and the Fishery Board, and when this Bill has passed, the Fishery Board will have gone. What is haphazard about our system is its historical development. There is nothing haphazard about the system itself.

Mr. Davidson: I am pleased to have the new definition of the Scottish Office of the word "haphazard." According to the dictionary it means "mixed up," and, therefore, I accept the Lord Advocate's statement that no Scottish Committees have grown up haphazardly. I should like to inform him that I have read the Gilmour Report—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Brown): The hon. Member must not make a second speech.

Mr. Davidson: The Lord Advocate has advised an hon. Member to read a particular report, and I think the hon. Member has a right to reply that he has read that report probably more fully than the Minister himself.

The Lord Advocate: I was dealing with the point that there has been since 1885 a Permanent Under-Secretary of State and that there is nothing in the Bill at all with regard to a Permanent Under-Secretary of State. That seems to be a point which some hon. Members have omitted. Whether the Bill is passed or not it will make no difference to what is purely a matter of internal domestic procedure. I should like to say, from my own experience during the last four years, how immeasurably valuable not only to the Scottish Minister but to the people of Scotland have been the services of the three gentlemen who during that time have held the position of Permanent Under-Secretary of State, and I think that view will be endorsed by all hon. Members who


have come into contact with them. We are not dealing with the introduction of a new office, we are not dealing with a Bill which makes any provision on the subject at all. The question which the Gilmour Committee considered was what should be the precise position and functions of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State under the new regime which they contemplated will be set up.
On that question it is desirable, I think, to remember that there are certain vital and essential functions for Scotland which have to be performed somehow. For example, almost every day the viewpoint of Scotland as a whole has to be presented officially in London by someone capable of meeting on equal terms the heads of the great Departments in Whitehall. That is a point which anyone who has any inside knowledge of government will find no difficulty in appreciating. In the next place, the Secretary of State for Scotland, be he who he may, is entitled, in order that he may discharge his functions properly as the principal person responsible for Scottish affairs, to have at his right hand one of the most experienced and highly qualified civil servants the Civil Service can produce. Let me deal with the point put by the right hon. Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) as to what will be the proper functions of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State as an adviser. Will he be entitled to be consulted upon matters affecting the Departments of Health and Agriculture and Education? I will answer in this way. The Secretary of State for Scotland, in my humble judgment, if he is worth his salt, as the present Secretary of State certainly is, will insist upon getting the best advice he can get from whatever source he cares to consult, and I cannot imagine any procedure or formula or rule under which any person in a Ministerial position would submit to be tied down as to the topics on which he may talk with his officials in his office.
According to my conception of the situation the Secretary of State for Scotland will be free to consult the Permanent Under-Secretary of State on all topics upon which the ripe judgment and experience of that official will be valuable. I think it will also be of immense advantage to any Secretary of State to have such an official at his side

not only to guide and advise, but to free him to make those visits to Scotland upon which hon. Members lay considerable importance.

Sir A. Sinclair: This is rather important. The Lord Advocate seems to be presenting the Permanent Under-Secretary in a different guise from that presented by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State presented him as a new official, like the Permanent Under-Secretary contemplated in the Gilmour Report, but under the old name. The Lord Advocate is presenting him as an old official, the Permanent Under-Secretary, and I should like to ask him what will be the difference between the functions which will be exercised by the Permanent Under-Secretary of State under the new dispensation and those which were exercised under the old regime?

The Lord Advocate: The right hon. Gentleman, if I may say without offence, is wrong. I am not presenting the case differently from the Secretary of State. The vital distinction between the old regime and the new is that under the old regime, by which I mean the regime condemned by the Gilmour Committee, there was a tendency, I will put it no higher, for the Departments of Health, Agriculture and all the rest to be obliged to send all their papers through a bottleneck called the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, and they got jammed and held up. The vital difference between the old regime and the new is that that bottle-neck is abolished, and the heads of Departments can come into direct contact with the Secretary of State, but the Secretary of State, none the less, has at his right hand the Permanent Under-Secretary of State as chief of staff as adviser, who will also perform the further functions which I am in the process of indicating. The heads of the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Health will be under no obligation and will not in fact handle the ordinary administrative duties through the channel of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State. The Permanent Under-Secretary of State will be, so far as my information goes, something new according to Civil Service conceptions, as he will have no departmental functions in the ordinary sense of the term. He will have no Department for which he is answerable, he will have no duties such as those which


are discharged by the heads of Departments in Whitehall. After drawing attention to the duties which he will not have to perform let me illustrate to the right hon. Gentleman the functions which under the new regime will fall to the Permanent Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Stephen: Am I right in supposing that his functions will be pretty much the same as those of the Secretary to the Cabinet in relation to the Prime Minister?

The Lord Advocate: I have not the honour to be a Member of the Cabinet, and I do not know what are the functions of the Secretary to the Cabinet in relation to the Prime Minister. Therefore, the hon. Member must excuse me from answering his question.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is this new Secretary, who is to act as a go-between between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the permanent officials, to perform the same functions as the individual who is nowadays appointed in the great industrial concerns—an individual who is above the managers and who is able to co-ordinate the different functions? I gather that the new Secretary will be above all the Departments, and will be able to act in a sort of judicial capacity, because he is above them, and that it is supposed that he will be better informed and more able than the average official at the Scottish Office.

The Lord Advocate: I think the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) is substantially right in the view he has stated, although he has a knowledge of industrial organisation which I do not claim to possess. I will give an illustration of the functions of the official under the new regime. Day by day an enormous amount of work necessarily has to be performed in co-ordinating and organising the work of the different Scottish Offices, so as to secure a single voice on Scottish topics. Very often that requires a very high degree of administrative skill and tact. The frequency with which that sort of thing arises would probably surprise hon. Members. I do not think sufficient importance has been attached to the consideration that, as was recalled in the Gilmour Committee's Report, there is a large number of functions and duties which give rise to problems of great intricacy and delicacy, and which do not come within the pro-

vince of any of the existing Departments or perhaps any one of them. One example that occurs to me is the work which fell on the Scottish Office in connection with the Glasgow Exhibition last year; another is the work in connection with electricity distribution and hydroelectric development in Scotland; and a third is the work which will no doubt have to be done in connection with the recently-published report of the Hilleary Committee. Those are topics which spread far beyond the bounds of any one Department, and in some instances do not fall within the competence of any Department. I feel that there is here a field for the performance, by the best official that Scotland can get, of a very valuable and a very difficult service from which the country will derive the greatest possible benefit. I repeat that this is a matter of administration, and it is a matter on which my right hon. Friend proposes to act in a way which is well calculated to achieve the greatest advantage for Scotland.

Mr. Davidson: There is already an official to do exactly that work. This is something new. Surely, a permanent official has done this work before. He is already established.

The Lord Advocate: I am afraid the hon. Member did not appreciate my argument when I explained the vital distinction between the old regime and the new regime. The Gilmour Committee's Report deals with that matter very clearly and at considerable length. Under the present regime, the Permanent Under-Secretary occupies quite a different position. He might become, if I may so put it, the bottleneck through which all the Departments have to operate. That bottle-neck is to be cut away. I am afraid I cannot make the matter clearer than that.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: I do not quite understand one thing. There is an official through whom all important decisions pass to the Secretary of State, and of course that official is seized of all the facts. As I understand it, under the new regime, the different Departments will go directly to the Secretary of State, and consequently will by-pass the Permanent Under-Secretary. In what way will the Permanent Secretary be seized of the necessary facts to enable him to give adequate advice to the Secretary of State


if he is asked to do so? Will he receive a collateral set of documents which will enable him to know all the facts, even though they do not pass through his hands?

The Lord Advocate: I am afraid I am not in a position to explain in detail every stage of office organisation for that is not within my province; but according to my conception, there will be no difficulty whatever in the purely secretarial branch of the Office in singling out those questions which are purely Departmental questions affecting one Department and passing through the departmental channels to the Secretary for decision, and those questions which are questions of policy requiring the check or assistance of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State. After all, my right hon. Friend and I are not laying down one of the laws of the Medes and Persians. This is an administrative topic which, as outlined to the House, has been criticised, and I am trying to reply to the criticisms. It is essentially an experiment, and I see no reason why it should not be varied in half a dozen different ways. As regards the project outlined by my right hon. Friend as being the principal administrative scheme of the Bill, I humbly submit that it is fully justified and should be tried out with every possible expectation of success. The hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson) condemned the Bill because he said it is only a piece of machinery. I agree that it is a piece of machinery; it does not profess to be anything else; and the proper way in which to judge a Bill is to test it by reference to the purpose it seeks to achieve. It is a piece of machinery. A very apt quotation was given to the House by the hon. Member for Coatbridge (Mr. Barr) about the
clerk-like dispatch of business according to routine.
I suggest that if the administrative reforms which are based on the Bill enable

the business of Scotland to be carried out with a clerk-like dispatch according to routine, with the least possible friction and delay, the Bill will have gone a very long way, not to achieving the innumerable reforms which hon. Members sought to enumerate, until they were stopped, but to rendering a very real and useful service to the people of Scotland.

Mr. Leonard: May I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to reply to the point put forward by myself and some of my hon. Friends as regards the difficulty which will arise concerning Scottish interests in relation to Departments which are organically connected with England? I called attention to the report of the Scottish Development Council and submitted the difficulty that in regard to some matters there will be a Scottish Department to which suggestions and complaints could be directed, but in regard to other matters there will be no Scottish Department to which complaints can be brought. Has the hon. and learned Gentleman considered the possibility of machinery being created for the purpose of meeting that difficulty? Secondly, I wish to ask what is to be the status or grade of the permanent official envisaged in the Bill.

The Lord Advocate: As regards the hon. Member's first point, I, unfortunately, was absent when he addressed the House. My right hon. Friend and I will be only too glad to consider the matter more fully later, and I would like to read the report of what the hon. Member said upon it. As regards his second question, the permanent Under-Secretary has always held what is, I understand to be, substantially, highest grade, though I am not sure what it is termed.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 157; Noes, 99.

Division No. 18.]
AYES.
[9.17 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Cary, R. A.


Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)
Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Beechman, N. A.
Channon, H.


Albery, Sir Irving
Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)


Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (So'h Univ's)
Broadbridge, Sir G. T.
Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Brooke, H. (Lewisham, W.)
Clarry, Sir Reginald


Aske, Sir R. W.
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)


Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)
Bull, B. B.
Colville, Rt. Hon. John


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Bullock, Capt. M.
Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)


Balniel, Lord
Burgin, Rt. Hon. E. L.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)


Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.
Cartland, J. R. H.
Cox, Trevor




Craven-Ellis, W.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Critchley, A
Lathan, G.
Remer, J. R.


Crooke, Sir J. Smedley
Leech, Sir J. W.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Crossley, A. C.
Lees-Jones, J.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Crowder, J. F. E.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Cruddas, Col. B.
Levy, T.
Rowlands, G.


Denville, Alfred
Lipson, D. L.
Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.


Dower, Major A. V. G.
Little, Sir E. Graham-
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Drewe, C.
Llewellin, Colonel J. J.
Salt, E. W.


Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Samuel, M. R. A.


Dugdale, Captain T. L.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Scott, Lord William


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
McKie, J. H.
Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)


Elliston, Capt. G. S.
Maclay, Hon. J. P.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.


Fleming, E. L.
Magnay, T.
Smith, Sir Louis (Hallam)


Fremantle, Sir F. E
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.
Somervell, Rt. Hon. Sir Donald


Furness, S. N.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Markham, S. F.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Glucketein, L. H.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)


Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Goldie, N. B.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Sutcliffe, H.


Gower, Sir R. V.
Moreing, A. C.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)


Grant-Ferris, R.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Thomas, J. P. L.


Grimston, R. V.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


Guinness, T. L. E. B.
Munro, P.
Thorneycroft, G. E. P.


Hannah, I. C.
Nall, Sir J.
Titchfield, Marquess of


Harbord, A.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)
Patrick, C. M.
Turton, R. H.


Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Peake, O.
Wakefield, W. W.


Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Peat, C. U.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Perkins, W. R. D.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Higgs, W. F.
Petherick, M.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J
Radford, E. A.
Whiteley, Major J. P.(Buckingham)


Hopkinson, A.
Raikes, H. V. A. M.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.
Wood, Hon. C. I. C.


Hume, Sir G. H.
Ramsbotham, H.
Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.


Hunloke, H. P.
Ramsden, Sir E.
Young, A. S. L. (Patrick)


James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.
Rankin, Sir R.



Jones, L. (Swansea W.)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Lieut.-Colonel Kerr and Major


Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)
Harvie Watt.


Knox, MaiorGeneral Sir A. W. F.
Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Price, M. P.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Pritt, D. N.


Adamson, Jennie L. (Dartford)
Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)
Quibell, D. J. K.


Adamson, W. M.
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Richards, R. (Wrexham)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Hardie, Agnes
Riley, B.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Ritson, J.


Banfield, J. W.
Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Sandys, E. D.


Barr, J.
Hopkln, D.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Batey, J.
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Sexton. T. M.


Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.
John, W.
Shinwell, E.


Benson, G.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Simpson, F. B.


Bevan, A.
Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Buchanan, G.
Kelly, W. T.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Burke, W. A.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Stephen, C.


Cape, T.
Kirby, B. V.
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Charleton, H. C.
Kirkwood, D.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Cluse, W. S.
Leach, W.
Summerskill, Dr. Edith


Cocks, F. S.
Leonard, W.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Collindridge, F.
Leslie, J. R.
Thurtle, E.


Cove, W. G.
Logan, D. G.
Tinker, J. J.


Daggar, G.
Lunn, W.
Tomlinson. G.


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Walkden, A. G.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
McGhee, H. G.
Watkins, F. C.


Day, H.
Maclean, N.
Watson, W. McL.


Dobbie, W.
MacNeill Weir, L.
Welsh, J. C.


Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
Marshall, F.
Westwood, J.


Ede, J. C.
Messer, F.
White, H. Graham


Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Montague, F.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)
Oliver, G. H.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
Paling, W.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Foot, D. M.
Parkinson, J. A.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Gardner, B. W.
Pearson, A.



Garro Jones, G. M.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Poole, C. C.
Mr. Mathers and Mr. Whiteley.


Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — REORGANISATION OF OFFICES (SCOTLAND) [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the transference of the functions of Scottish Government Departments to the Secretary of State, to make provision for the reorganisation of the General Board of Control for Scotland, and for purposes connected with the aforesaid matters, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such remuneration as the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury may from time to time determine to the secretaries, officers and servants appointed to enable the Secretary of State to discharge the functions vested in him and to the chairman, and the medical and legal commissioners of the General Board of Control for Scotland, and of such sums in respect of the expenses of a Fisheries Advisory Council as the Treasury may approve."—(King' s Recommendation signified.)—[Mr. Colville.]

Resolution to be reported upon Thursday.

Orders of the Day — ROAD AND RAIL TRAFFIC ACT, 1933.

9.28 p.m.

Sir Reginald Clarry: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Goods Vehicles (Licences and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Provisional Regulations, 1938, dated 1st September, 1938, made by the Minister of Transport under and by virtue of the powers conferred on him by the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 5933, a copy of which Regulations was presented to this House on the 8th day of November, 1938, be annulled.
The question before the House concerns goods motor vehicles, of which there are over 500,000 in the country today, and they pay by way of vehicle licence duties approximately £17,000,000. We are not concerned with the licence duties, but with the fees that are necessary in connection with the issue of licences to owners of vehicles. The Minister's regulations seek to increase those fees. My friends and I, and a large number of people outside this House, seek the annulment of that regulation. It is unfortunate that the procedure of the House in a case like this should put the onus on those who object to the regulations rather than upon the appropriate Minister to endeavour to justify the necessity for

making the regulation. Although the vehicle proprietors are very appreciative of the extension of the period, there appears to be no necessity for an increase in the fee which works out at double the amount per annum. In the case of an A licence for two years the cost was £1 10s. Under this regulation it will be for five years amounting to £7 10s., or equivalent to an increase of 15s. per annum. The same amount per annum arises on Class B and a similar amount on Class C. It may be a small sum, but it is obviously an additional burden on those who run goods vehicles, and it would superficially appear to be a penalty on road transport. Taxation by regulation in principle is bad and, when urgency is added to that and the regulation is made operative from its day of issue, and the Government do not wait until the House affirms or rejects it, as they have the opportunity to-night, I think the situation is even worse. There is no limit to the amount that the Minister might put on to this fee. It would be competent for him to raise it to such an extent that it would comparatively ruin the industry, and that without discussion or possibility of amendment in the House of Commons. It must be borne in mind that when a vehicle proprietor applies for the issue of a licence, in round figures approximately 50 per cent. of the applications are resisted by the railways, by rivals, and to an extent by the public, and, therefore, in 50 per cent. of the cases the applicant is put to the expense of legal and other charges.
In answer to a question a few days ago the Minister was understood to say that the past fees—I will not call them the present fees—were inadequate to meet administrative expenses. When the 1933 Road and Rail Traffic Act was under discussion the then Minister of Transport estimated that the cost of administration would be approximately £130,000. It is computed that the present revenue is £170,000 and the addition now asked for, a further £150,000, will make it £320,000. It is difficult to imagine why in estimating cost they got so far out of their reckoning or, alternatively, what administrative charges have come into the picture to increase them to such a vast extent. I think it is only fair to the House that the Minister should take an early opportunity of giving us the detailed administrative costs—those costs solely allocated to the


granting and administration of the licence and not confused with anything else. I have no desire to develop the further explanation given by the Minister when he referred to the further increase of costs which must be anticipated in connection with the control of wages and rates, because I feel that that will be developed by later speakers. To anticipate costs in the administration of an Act of Parliament not only not passed but of which there is no Bill even drafted, is going a little beyond the authority of the Minister and if, as we might reasonably anticipate, the question of rates may be dealt with in a co-operative manner with rail rates in the near future, this anticipated cost would be rendered entirely unnecessary. Having regard to the very vociferous demand of the railways for a square deal I am sure the Minister will be most anxious to avoid any opportunity for the suggestion that partiality is being allowed to creep into the administration. With that in mind I would ask my right hon. Friend to give the fullest details to justify the necessity of this regulation.

9.35 P.m.

Sir Joseph Lamb: I beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend has referred to the question of the placards which we have seen about, asking for a square deal on behalf of the railways. We are to-night asking for a fair deal, not a square deal, because it all depends on how many sides you occupy on the square. This is an application for something which we think would be fair to the industry concerned. I do not wish to bring in any question of comparison between the motor transport industry and any other industry. The transport industry is a legitimate one; I do not think anybody will deny that. It may be a comparatively new industry, but it has given a service which has proved of inestimable value to industry as a whole, a service which it is impossible for any other form of transport to serve in the same degree and with the same efficiency. We must be very careful how we impose upon this industry anything which will make it difficult for it to continue and so deprive the public, and particularly the industrial public, of benefits which up till now they have received and which they now look upon as essential. There are limits to the burdens that we can place upon any industry, and

we think that this is another encroachment upon the rights of the industry by the imposition of a further addition to the already heavy expenditure which it bears at the present time.
My hon. Friend mentioned that the Act under which the Minister is acting gives the power of putting on charges to reimburse the Ministry for actual expenditure which it has incurred with regard to administration, but while we might accept that for the administration of a law which at present exists, I do not think anybody would assume, when the House passed that law, that they were giving the right to any Department to impose charges for something which was only in anticipation and had not actually been passed by this House. If that is the claim that the Minister makes, that these charges and fees are necessary to enable him to reimburse himself for the cost of administering a future law, I submit that he has no ground on which he can stand. I hope the right hon. Gentleman can tell us why he thinks he is entitled to put this charge on an industry which is performing a most serviceable duty in a way in which no other transport industry can do it, a service from door to door in many cases.

9.39 P. m.

Mr. Levy: I think we shall all agree—and this House has commented upon it many times—that when a Bill is brought into this House a number of us have claimed that we should still retain control of the finances which are definitely included in it, and we have all deplored from time to time that Acts of Parliament have been passed by this House in which a Section has been inserted enabling a Minister, by rules and regulations, to impose financial obligations upon an industry without his first having to come to this House for its consent or permission.
Here we have the Act of 1933, which gives the Minister power to impose rules and regulations imposing financial burdens upon this particular industry. It also says that in order that the Minister might impose that burden, he should lay a Paper upon the Table and that that Paper should lie there for 28 days. Here is a curious fact. This Paper was laid upon the Table on 11th November, but the regulation came into force on 1st September, and when applying for their licences on 1st September the road


hauliers had to pay this increased licence duty as from 1st September, although the Paper was not laid before 11th November, and then it is said that it should have lain on the Table for 28 days. I am not going to argue whether that is right or wrong, but I am entitled to say, in accordance at any rate with my interpretation of the regulations, that that Paper ought to have been laid and remained there for 28 days to see whether there were any objections to it, and if there were no objections, then the licence fee could be imposed, but if there was objection by this House, then it should be nullified.
In this case, if this House grants this Prayer, it means that all those people who have paid in advance will be entitled to, and will have all the trouble of, a rebate. Here is a case where, under the 1933 Act, we have to accept the fact that the Minister has absolute power to impose an increase of these licence duties to any extent that he thinks fit. He will have a perfect defence when he says that the Act gives him this right and power and that it puts upon him an obligation to see that the administration costs and the licence fees shall be made to balance. All that we in this House can do, if we are of the opinion that the obligations which he is imposing upon these hauliers are unreasonable, is to reject the Paper that the Minister has laid, and to accept this Prayer. We have now to ask ourselves whether this imposition is or is not unreasonable and whether the administration, in our opinion, has or has not been wasteful and extravagant.
Let us examine the question. In 1933 it was estimated that the revenue necessary to deal with the administration expenses was £170,000. Within four or five years the administration costs, according to the Minister, have risen to over £300,000. What has occurred in the meantime to justify such a colossal expenditure on the administration of these road hauliers' licences? If some administrative expenses which do not come within the category of road hauliers licences are brought in they should come out of the Road Fund, and should not be an imposition upon the hauliers.

Mr. E. J. Williams: Who provides the Road Fund?

Mr. Levy: It is created by the licence duties which automatically go into the Treasury. It is supplied by the licences of the hauliers and the motor industry generally, and if the administrative expenses are not directly concerned with the hauliers' licences, the Treasury should meet them. They have no right to impose on the hauliers administrative expenses for something which is not relevant to the licence duties of this particular class. It is a small matter, but this House is concerned as much with principles as with details, and we do not want to allow the principle, however small the finance concerned may be, of the right of control by this House to be taken away by a Minister issuing orders or regulations. I ask the House to agree that this imposition of the extra licence should not be made under these regulations, and that the expenses of the administration concerned with these licences is wasteful or extravagant, or that some other administrative expenses not relevant to these licences must have been introduced in order to cause the expenses to be increased to such an extent. If we want to drive the hauliers off the road and to tax them out of existence, let us say so and be plain and clear about it. Do not let us do it by methods of subterfuge.
It will be said that only a small amount is concerned. They have to pay 7s. 6d. for a licence for three years. They are to have it extended for five years, and on the same ratio the amount ought to be 12s. 6d., but in this case they are being asked for only an extra 2s. 6d. I am concerned, however, with the principle involved, and the question whether the Minister can impose whatever charges he likes, however high they may be. The only remedy we have in order to protect the hauliers is to move a Prayer so that the House may hear the case. I hope that in this instance the House will vote for the Prayer and nullify the regulations.

9.50 p.m.

Sir Joseph Nall: The present Minister of Transport is having to carry the burden of this increased charge although he is not altogther the responsible party. The fault, if there be a fault, lies in the fact that when the Act of 1933 was passed the estimate of cost was much too low. For that somebody in the Department must be blamed, because to tell the House, as the then Minister did, that this cost would be about £120,000 a year, and for the present Minister to have to come here and


say that that was wrong and that it is £300,000, is not fair to the present occupant of the office. The matter goes a little deeper than the actual matter of this Prayer, because the commissioners and their staffs deal not only with the goods side, but with the passenger side, and it will be an advantage if those concerned were told how the expenses are allocated as between the passenger side and the goods side. I do not know whether it will be convenient for my right hon. Friend to say what is the average cost of licence per passenger vehicle and how that compares with the average cost of licence per goods lorry, My hon. Friends have been giving figures, and one can understand that the owners of vehicles feel aggrieved at what seems to be a considerable jump in the gross expenditure. Actually the cost per vehicle, as my hon. Friend who moved the Prayer indicated, is not very much per annum. It is the way in which it has been done, and the circumstances in which it has arisen, which have given rise to a large part of the volume of objection.
It is obvious that the administrative department and the new organisation run by the traffic commissioners are bound to cost some money, but in view of the fact that the commissioners themselves are the licensing authorities for goods vehicles and the chairman of the area commissioners is the licensing authority for passenger vehicles, the principal parts of their staffs and the offices they occupy are common to both sides of their job. Only a proportion of their staffs can definitely be segregated for passenger or goods licences, and the House ought to know a little more minutely what the allocation is. As for the actual merits of this increase, I think that my right hon. Friend the Minister has been pressed to act a little prematurely. It is obvious that when the original Estimate was made under the 1933 Act nobody knew what was going to happen. Certainly the Department had a poor idea what the cost would be, but now that some experience has been gained and it has been found that the original estimate was far from the real fact, it is unfortunate that my right hon. Friend has had to make the change in this way. If he could review the matter, especially as regards the question whether the allocation is fair between passengers and goods, it would be in the public interest if he could at this

stage defer the increase so that, if it is found to be fully justified, those concerned can at least know that there is no alternative to the action he has taken.

9.54 P.m.

Captain Strickland: It is unfortunate that in order to get an explanation of the regulations that have been issued by the Minister for increasing the charge for the hearing of cases, this should be the only chance the House has of any sort of supervision of the raising of this extra money. It is necessary for the Minister to-night to justify as well as he can—and no doubt he has his case—the reason for this increase. The question we are discussing is the charge that shall be made against the haulier for the hearing of his application. It has nothing to do with the licence duty which he has to pay afterwards. If I give a concrete case which to my knowledge is correct it might help the House to come to a judgment as to whether they would feel justified in accepting the Prayer. In my own constituency there is a haulier who has 120 vehicles. That man, in order to get a hearing for his application for a licence, will have to pay, if these regulations are passed to-night, £900—that is to have his case heard. That is a vast sum of money, and I submit that it is a quite unjustifiable charge, not comparable with the fees in any other court of which I know, particularly when it is borne in mind that the owner of a single vehicle can have his application heard for £7 10s.The haulier of whom I speak has to meet an annual charge of £3,600 in licence duties on top of the £900 he will have to pay for the hearing. The hearing of the application for 100 vehicles in one compact mass takes no more time than the hearing of an application for a single vehicle at £7 10s. Why, then, should this haulier be called upon to pay a sum which I think every Member will agree is far beyond what should be charged to a man who is pursuing with great care the difficult business of road haulage?

Mr. Benjamin Smith: Will the hon. and gallant Member not inform the House that although that sum would be payable for a hearing the hearing in fact means that the licences would be granted?

Captain Strickland: We are faced with additional difficulties in this case by virtue of the peculiar circumstances attending


the Estimates of the Ministry. It is almost impossible for any layman to follow all the intricacies of payments into the Road Fund and out of the Road Fund and into the Treasury and out of the Treasury, and we are largely dependent upon the Minister's explanation to-night to guide us to a right decision. I should like to refer to an answer which the Minister was kind enough to supply when I asked for detailed particulars of the income and the outgoings of his Department in respect of goods vehicles. He referred me to Class VI, Vote 15, sub-head A, pages 140 and 141, and other documents, but when I read them I found great difficulty in searching things out. But he did give me figures to show that £266,000 was the sum charged as expenses under his own Estimates, plus some £6,000 for the Road and Rail Appeal Tribunal. Then follows this:
In addition, £165,000 is borne upon other Votes 
There is no information as to where I can find those other Votes
or sub-heads for accommodation, travelling, stationery and printing and general administration charges.
Surely if the Minister of Transport has general administration charges he should carry them on his Estimates, and it should be within the province of this House to check up those Estimates and to criticise them if it is thought the Minister is charging too much.
and including pension liability, making a grand total of £437,000
That shows the sort of sum with which we are dealing—nearly £500,000 of expenditure with practically no power over it in this House, unless we take a step such as we have taken to-night. The answer continues:
After the closest apportionment between passenger and goods services of expenditure common to both, the total estimated cost of goods licensing for this year is £276,000.
No indication is given of how that figure is arrived at, but those who have followed it will see that that represents 63 per cent. of the cost of the administration which, in the Minister's judgment, is attributable to the goods vehicles service side. Then we follow on:
and the amount recoverable by goods licence fees and miscellaneous receipts is £201,000.
That is only 46 per cent. of the total of the receipts. How comes it that 63 per cent. of the costs of administration are

due to the goods vehicles side, while only 46 per cent. of the receipts are to be credited to that particular class of road transport? The Minister's answer goes on to say:
showing a deficit of £75,000 for the current financial year ending 31st March, 1939."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th December, 1938; col. 1643, Vol. 342.]
If you alter the 46 per cent. of the receipts to 63 pet cent. of the receipts you get the sum of £76,000. It is very remarkable that the deficit should be £75,000 and that £76,000 should be the difference, as I work it out, between the 46 per cent. and the 63 per cent., and that makes me£the Minister will forgive me for saying so—a little suspicious of the way in which this has been presented. I have no means of checking up on it from the information the Minister has been good enough to supply.
Next I want to deal with a letter which the Minister sent out to several Members of Parliament indicating the reasons why he is increasing these fees. I need not read the whole of the letter. There is, first, the statement that the licences are for longer currency periods, which we know, and then the letter goes on:
When the licensing system was set up in 1933 the Government made clear their intention that it should be self-supporting and that the receipts from licence fees should balance the cost of administration.
Those who care to turn up the Act of 1933 will find no such words. Those words have been extracted from the Financial Memorandum, which is published when the Bill is published and disappears immediately afterwards, leaving the House no source of criticism with regard to what the Government's intentions were as laid down in the Financial Memorandum. The letter goes on—and this is the point I wish to draw to the attention of the House:
When we came to review the fees this year we had to take account of the cost of enforcing the new Road Haulage Wages Act.
The Minister bases the power he has to increase the licence fees for road hauliers on the fact that the Act of 1933 empowered him to meet his expenses out of the charges for the licence fees. I am not well up in the law, but I should have thought that an Act passed in 1933 could not have tacked on to it an Act passed in 1938 without there being some reference in the Act of 1938 to the Minister


being authorised to read it in the light of the instructions in the Act of 1933. Section 13 of the Road Haulage Wages Act says:
The expenses of the Minister in carrying this Act into effect and any expenses authorised by the Minister, with the consent of the Treasury, to be incurred by a central hoard or any area board shall be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament.
I should have thought that was pretty plain language. I should have thought that that meant it would have to appear in the Estimates, and that the House would have a chance of discussing them, but the Minister says that he has power to override the right of Parliament to administer this fund and to say whether they are satisfied with it or not by means of these regulations, which can lie on the Table and become law unless someone is energetic enough to look them out, and I do not think that is very fair. The Minister goes on further to say:
The Transport Advisory Council recently recommended that a rates system within the industry should be established. The industry is at present engaged in working out detailed proposals. The administration of the system will, of course, also involve new expenditure, of which we had to take account in revising the fees.
On the constitutional point, is it really within the province of a Minister to inflict taxation by those means upon any part of the community in order to be ready for a Bill that has not yet been presented to the House, that might never pass this House and that the House, in its wisdom or otherwise, might decide upon making other financial provisions? Finally, just at the moment when, if there is anything trembling in the balance it is the rates system, when you have your railways companies petitioning that their rates structure and rates publication should be abolished, I should have thought that even the most hardened sinner would have hesitated before fixing a rates publication system on the roads at the moment when it was being removed from the railway. Because of this unfairness I suggest that the Minister has no right to place down as potential expenditure an amount that will be forthcoming only if the Bill is introduced, if the House accepts it and if the House is not prepared to make financial provisions in any other way.
I have tried as moderately as I can to state the case for the road hauliers. I hope that the House will give this matter

consideration, because it may be a serious thing to-night to go into the Division Lobby and to reject the Prayer, when the House has a sense of what may happen if we establish the precedent to-night of allowing potential legislation to be met before it comes. If the House is satisfied that it is a right and proper thing that such a heavy charge should be laid upon the industry, it will cost that man £900 to have his case heard. I suggest with all humility that it would be wise to reject the regulations and to support the Prayer.

10.8 p.m.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Burgin): It may be for the convenience of the House if I intervene at this stage to give some explanation. Of course, I am in the hands of the House as to the course I take, but I think this would be the most convenient course. Before I come to what is to be a detailed explanation let me make one or two statements. It can obviously be no pleasure to any Minister to be obliged to increase the fees of any man who has to carry on his business, but at the same time I am sufficiently level-headed to say that if there has been a mistake in the calculation it is best to remove it while the going is good, rather than to wait until it is too late. There is at present a deficit on the accounts. I can show it quite clearly. There is an obligation on the House, arising from the assurances given at the time of the passing of the legislation, that the fees shall be made to support any expenses incurred in connection with them. The increases are budgetted within £3,000 of the expenditure. I will in a moment give the House an undertaking that if, at the end of two years and after experience of the working has been gained, those fees are too high I will review the matter, and apply, if necessary, to reduce them.

Mr. Dingle Foot: Too high for the expenditure?

Captain Strickland: I hope the Minister will forgive me, but is he going to make that reduction retrospective and to hand back to the people who have paid out the proportion of which they have been deprived?

Mr. Burgin: The point that the House has not yet appreciated is that if a licence is granted for five years there is no power to recall it. The licence is granted


and the vehicle is franked. The vehicle being franked for five years, it is my duty to budget for expenditure that is likely and probable within those five years. I have to make my accounts balance. The total of my income is known immediately the licences are drawn, but the total of the expenditure is a matter for conjecture. No important item of expenditure is neglected. I shall deal with the question of the rates and show how I arrive at those totals, but I want to point out to the House that by far the greater part of the expenditure lies within the control of the industry itself. The greater part of the expenditure comes from failure to observe the law. When I come to give to the House the expenditure on convictions for irregularity I think everybody in the House will agree that the law should be enforced, and that greater attention be given to breaches of the law. That is what is causing the cost at the present time.
In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) I will give the details of the figures between passengers and goods and the calculation of the cost for goods and for passengers. I want to make it clear at the outset that I am under an obligation to the House to see that this account balances, and I am also under an obligation to the House to deal with every item of expenditure and to balance my accounts properly. I have something to say about the suggestion that the Estimates are not subjected to examination. That is a new doctrine. They are, of course, available not only to the Public Accounts Committee but for discussion in this House under their proper heading.

Captain Strickland: I am sorry but the Minister must have misunderstood what I said. We have no method of discussing these matters at all except by Prayer.

Lieut. -Commander Agnew: The Minister has referred to an account. Will he say what account and what are the items which are brought into it?

Mr. Burgin: Certainly, I propose to do so, but I shall endeavour to begin at the first point. I first propose to show that there is a deficit on the old scale. I then propose to show the items that go into the account on the credit side and

on the debit side. I propose to show the yawn, and I propose to show how I am going to meet that yawn; but before I embark on that I must have something to say about the suggestion that the charges made are charges for obtaining a hearing. It is true that the substitution of an extended period of currency must involve an increased gross fee. That is inevitable. If you have to pay a licence fee for five years for a vehicle and happen to be lucky enough to own 120 vehicles, you must pay 120 times the application fee. It is not in order that the case may be heard; it is to secure the five years' licence for each vehicle. I think the House would be distressed if it thought that there was some monetary penalty against a man which in any way prevented him from making his application, but it is that the licence, lasting for five years, has to carry with it five times the annual fee.

Mr. Benjamin Smith: And, if he does not get his licence, his money is returned.

Mr. Burgin: The regulations that we are discussing are the corollary of the increase in the length of time of the licence. The estimates made when the legislation was passed through the House were a shot in the dark. Nobody knew the allocation as between A, B and C licences, and the amount payable for the C licence is relatively small. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because the C licensee receives very little benefit from its operation. It is a registration fee, and involves the examination of the vehicle once every four years, or whatever is the administrative practice.
There is actually at the present time, in the current financial year, a deficit of £75,000. That is the difference between the total estimated cost of goods licences administration, which is £276,000, and the amount recoverable by way of licence fees, which is £201,400. The figure of £276,000, which is the debit figure, is obtained by making the closest possible apportionment, as between passenger and goods licensing, of the expenditure common to both, and by adding the cost of the Road and Rail Appeal Tribunal. The expenditure common to both services in the year ending 31st March next is estimated to come to £429,500. The largest item is salaries and wages, including insurance, which is over £260,000.


The other items include travelling expenses, £35,000; printing and stationery, £35,000; accommodation, £22,000; pensions liability, £18,000; legal expenses, £15,000; miscellaneous—postage, telegrams, telephone and shorthand reporting—£21,000; and headquarters expenditure, £16,000.

Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to legal expenses. I gather, from what he said earlier, that some of the expenses incurred are expenses of prosecutions under the Act. Can he say how much is recovered in costs, and whether that will enter into the account?

Mr. Burgin: I will have inquiries made immediately. There is an item on the receipts side for costs collected, and I will give the hon. Member the figure. Dealing with the proportion of the£429,500 which is attributed to goods and the proportion which is attributed to passengers, the House will have understood that the total expenditure is common to both, and that it is my task to subdivide it. The costs of salaries of the staff of the Traffic Area Authorities employed wholly on passenger or on goods licensing are quite clearly identifiable, but the costs of the salaries of such of the staff as are employed indifferently on passenger or goods licensing are not identifiable, and have to be estimated.
No exact estimate is possible, but a number of inquiries have been made through the traffic offices, and the percentage of the time occupied by each division of the staff has been estimated, which gives a fair representation of the position. The percentages seem to be as follows: In the case of the enforcement staff, 10 per cent. passenger and 90 per cent. goods—I will give the figures later on; in the case of certifying officers, 80 per cent. passenger and 20 per cent. goods; in the case of vehicle examiners, 50 per cent. passenger and 50 per cent. goods. Having in this way arrived at an average percentage cost for salaries, the other non-identifiable costs—accommodation, stationery, travelling, and so on—have been split in the same proportion.
By this method of allocation, the apportionment of costs since 1934, when goods services came under the service, is as follows: 1934, 52 per cent. passengers, 48 per cent, goods; 1935, 46 per cent.

and 54 per cent.; 1936, 41 per cent. and 59 per cent.; 1937, 39 per cent. and 6r per cent.; 1938, 37 per cent. and 63 per cent.; 1939, 36 per cent, and 64 per cent. The identifiable costs amount to approximately one-third of the whole, so that I am adopting a percentage basis for two-thirds of my costs. I am doing so as a result of a most detailed examination, in which the Traffic Area Authorities have taken each of these items.

Captain Strickland: Would the Minister deal with the receipts side—the allocation of the 46 per cent.?

Mr. Burgin: On the receipts side there are A licences, B licences, C licences, applications for variations, drivers' licences, receipts such as the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) referred to, miscellaneous costs and the fees of the Appeals Tribunal. It may be assumed that I have credited the maximum possible receipts applicable to goods traffic, and deducted my 201 from my 276. I have a debit balance, on my existing accountancy basis, of £75,000.

Captain Strickland: Does the figure for staffs come under this?

Mr. Burgin: I think not. Perhaps I might make my statement in my own way. I am most anxious to give the House the information which has induced me to act in this way. For the financial year ending 31st March, 1940, the total expenditure common to both is estimated at £445,000, the increase being partly due to increase in staff and partly to automatic increases in salaries and wages. The proportion of that properly attributable to goods licensing is estimated at £285,000, and to that has to be added £6,000 for the appeals tribunal and £25,000 for wages control by the Minister of Labour, making a grand total of £316,000. On my new scales for the year ending 31st March, 1940, it is estimated that the receipts will be £319,000. On that basis, for the year ending 31st March, 1940, there will be a margin of £3,500, out of which there will have to be borne the preliminary expenses of any new system of rates control, the cost of which will be of the order of £50,000 in any full year.
There is nothing to suggest that it is proposed to take from the industry any more than is necessary to make it self-


supporting. The most explicit assurances were given to the House on this point, and I have the actual reference made by the Minister of Transport at that date. There was an Amendment moved during the passage of the Bill, suggesting that the licence fee should be a nominal one, and the answer was given that it was the Government's intention that the service should be self-supporting and that the receipts from licence fees should balance the costs of administration. It was made quite clear by my predecessor at that time that the greater part of the expenditure was going to be incurred in trying to enforce safety conditions, and that the people who ought to be responsible for it were the people directly concerned, and that the cost ought not to be spread over the passenger service figures. The Minister of Transport said:
I intend that the operations shall be effective and the security conditions observed. I have estimated for what I believe will be a sufficient number of examiners to enable these security conditions to be enforced providing the owners of these vehicles co-operate. If they do, and if they try to reduce these breaches of conditions, then the expenditure may fall, but if they refuse to co-operate, and breaches go on and I find the number of examiners not sufficient, I shall have to increase the number of examiners, and the cost will have to he borne until the conditions are observed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee A), 22nd June, 5933; col. 389.]
I think the House will be shocked when I tell them of the extent of the breaches of conditions of the law that are committed. In the year 1937 there were 8,000 convictions for driving over hours and over rest periods; 10,000 convictions for hours not kept, or improperly kept; 4,500 for vehicles not maintained in a serviceable condition; 2,750 for vehicles used without licence or outside the terms of the licence; 200 for use while under a prohibition order; 550 for heavy vehicles driven by men not licensed to drive them; and 7,300 convictions for speeding. That makes a total of 26,000 convictions for driving for excessive hours, failing to keep records, vehicles not kept in a fit and proper condition, apart from speeding. It is to deal with these breaches of the law that this expenditure is principally incurred, and the industry has it very largely in its own hands to keep that expenditure down. From all parts of the House has come the demand that there should be a more rigorous enforcement of

the provisions of the law. Hon. Members in all parts of the House have said, "What is the use of Parliament passing prohibitory rules if they are then flouted and not enforced?" Here is an effort being made to enforce them, and hon. Members come along and say that the costs of doing so are too heavy. The regulations I am asking this House to approve and the regulations which are under scrutiny rather than attacked tonight are regulations providing for the necessary increase to bring about a balancing of the accounts to enable this work to be done.

Captain Strickland: Has the Minister any figures in his possession showing the amount of responsibility for these breaches of the law which are committed miles away from the owner of the vehicle but for which the owner is responsible?

Mr. A. Reed: Can the Minister say to what extent his officials are responsible for any of these prosecutions? My experience is that practically all the offences mentioned are brought by the police and the police prosecute.

Mr. Burgin: Oh, no, these are matters relating to the Traffic Area Authorities. I thought it might interest the House if I endeavoured to extract the sort of matter which comes before one of the clerks to the Authorities. I thought that the House would like to get away from the pure balance sheet to see the human side of it behind the scenes, to see the thousands of applications for the varying of licences which are received in the course of the year, the applications for A and B licences, the arrangements made for public inquiry conducted by the licensing authority, including cases lasting several days, the decisions the authorities come to, the licences and identity certificates issued, and the fees collected and accounted for. In regard to C licences, there are the applications, the issue of the licences and the collection of the fees.
A very important part of the organisation is the staff engaged on the examination of goods vehicles as to their mechanical fitness, involving more often than I would wish the issue of prohibition notices and their removal. In the last year for which records are available, 170,000 examinations were made of vehicles to test their mechanical fitness. The House will appreciate the real safety


measures that are involved in the constant inspection and supervision of the state of these vehicles on the roads. The enforcement department has a staff of traffic examiners engaged on examining the records kept by drivers, the observation of the movements of vehicles, and other matters connected with attendance at police court proceedings. The police court proceedings mean very often the engagement of legal assistance.
That is a statement of the kind of work upon which the staff of the traffic examiners are engaged. I can assure the House that the staffing of the traffic examiners office is not a matter that is done arbitrarily. They are controlled exactly in the same way as a Government Department. The original estimates and any increases have to be justified to the Treasury. No account is taken of the fact that the expenditure is not ultimately borne on the Exchequer, but exactly the same test is adopted as if the money were voted directly from the Exchequer. The organisation is constantly under review. Seven of the provincial offices have been visited this year by members of the staff from headquarters, and there is constant touch with the two London offices. The proportion of supervisory to subordinate posts is one to 12, compared with one to 6 in the London headquarters. The Select Committee on Estimates took evidence from the Establishment Officer of the Ministry and from two of the Traffic Commissioners in 1932 and the Committee made no criticism then and have made none since. The staffs of the Traffic Offices are set out in full detail in the Estimates of my Department. Therefore, I can give the House an absolute assurance that the Traffic Area Authorities are properly staffed, but not overstaffed, that they work properly and under supervision, and that their accounts come up for inspection and control in the ordinary way.
With these figures in front of me, I should not be doing my duty as the responsible Minister if I did not say that I cannot continue on a basis which shows a deficit of £75,000. I am quite prepared to stand by the Estimates which I have given to the House, because I believe those figures to be right, but I give the House an assurance that when we have had two years' proper working of them, and two years' experience, I will re-examine the whole matter and see

whether the Estimates upon which alone I am asking the House to reject the Prayer to-night, are or are not accurate. We can then, if necessary, readjust them.
There may be some argument as to whether the granting of a licence for five years means that there is going to be a less number of times on which people come before the Traffic Area Authorities. I have made proper allowance for that, and the amount of saving that there is to be. If you grant a licence for five years, then your estimates must cover a period of five years. Once having given a man a licence at the published date I cannot during the currency of the licence go back and ask him for more. In working out the estimate of probable cost, the cost of licensing, the cost of control, etc., I have to observe that expenditure will not be static. There will be an automatic increase in the salaries and wages of a new staff, apart from a wholly incalculable increase in the numbers of staff. On the other hand, I have anticipated on a most liberal basis the whole of my revenue. I have calculated revenue on a maximum basis, and expenditure on a basis which is by no means the maximum. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) as to all-in-cost of licensing a public vehicle known as an omnibus, it is £4 a year. An A licence under my scheme will cost £1 10S. a year. With this explanation of the items on the debit side, by showing that I am calculating the maximum possible receipts, and in giving the assurance that I will review the matter in two years' time, I ask the House to realise the common sense of the case, that if licences are granted for five years the fees must go up, and that once the time has been fixed it cannot be altered, I am obliged to ask the House to reject the Prayer.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Benjamin Smith: If ever a Minister has made the case which we have so often put forward from these benches as to the type of employer which is operating these licences, it is the Minister of Transport to-night. Never has any Opposition received such confirmation of their case from a Minister. The Act of 1933 was passed as a safety Measure. The Bill was carried through the House of Commons because of the extortionate hours which the men were called upon to work, which rendered them unsafe to the public on the


roads. There were at the time photographs published showing the driver asleep and another man driving at the wheel. The Act stopped all that. I have on every possible occasion pressed upon the Minister the need for more and more examiners for the enforcement of the Act, and I speak for 200,000 members employed in the industry and for about 700,000 members of the Transport Union. We have spent many thousands of pounds trying to get the employers to implement the promises made to us. The Act said that as a safety measure no man should work more than 11 hours in one day, with certain variations. It also said that the vehicle should be efficient and safe, but the Act has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance by the employers. You have only to look at the records of the reports of the Traffic Commissioners and you will find that upwards of 40,000 cases of breaches of the Act have been made by employers in this industry.

Captain Strickland: By the men.

Mr. Smith: I could bring case after case. I have one in my possession now, where the employers have forced the men to make false records. I could give the name of one firm—it is within the knowledge of the Minister—which forced their employé to "cook" his record. Only last week I was addressing a branch meeting and one man said to me, "Mr. Smith, you do not know the duress that is put upon us to 'cook' the records." We urged upon the Minister at that time that the records should be of such a character that they could not be "cooked." What happens now? Anybody can get a record book; the driver makes his record out directly, and the firm copies it and adjusts it, and it is then submitted to the traffic people as a record of work. There are hundreds of cases which prove that that is what happens. There is another system. The time which the driver spends in waiting, in loading, or discharging the load, is incorporated in the hours of work permitted by law. There are hundreds of cases in which the man works for three hours preparing the vehicle, loading it up and so on, and when he is about to leave the yard, he clocks on, and that time is entered in the record.
The Minister has made a speech which has justified every complaint that we have made about the administration of the Act. I am sure that the hon. and gallant Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland) and the hon. Member for Newport (Sir R. Clarry) would rather that their names had not appeared in support of this Prayer in view of the statement that the Minister has had to make. The hon. and gallant Member for Coventry cited a firm owning 120 vehicles. He made the statement that that firm had to deposit £900 for a hearing of their case, and those who know little about the matter may think that if that firm did not get their 120 licences, they would lose their £900. Obviously, that was a misleading statement. Any person who wants one or more licences, whether they are licences for vehicles, or whether they are licences for public houses or licences for tobacconists, has to deposit an amount of money for each separate licence.

Captain Strickland: Do I understand the hon. Member to say that if a tobacconist applies for a licence, in addition to paying for a licence, he has to pay £1 or more to apply for it?

Mr. Smith: No, he does not have to do that, nor does the firm which the hon. Member quoted. If the employers would get together for the purpose of working the Act and better still, for the purpose of working the agreements which have been arrived at between them and my union and other trade unions, the costs of administration would fall, so that there could be a reduction in the cost of licences. Can anybody imagine that when you came to the House representing interests—[Interruption.]

Mr. H. G. Williams: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the case that all remarks ought to be addressed to you?

Mr. Speaker: That is a very old rule.

Mr. Smith: All my remarks are addressed to you, and through you, Mr. Speaker; and I say that representatives of this industry on the other side, when they came to the House and demanded an extension of the licences, surely never dreamed that they would get away with that extension without having to pay for it. If they have five-year licences instead


of one-year or two-year licences, surely they expect to pay for them. The hon. Member rather implied that I spoke for the railway interests. I assure him that on this occasion I speak on behalf of no interests except those of the members of my union. Let this be said for the railways, that they have a statutory wages tribunal and once they have agreed to wage conditions, at least they honour the agreement and pay the wages, whatever difficulties may arise. That has never applied to the wage conditions as a whole when they have been agreed to by national bodies in the road transport industry. Has a single railway interest objected to the extension of fees for the licences for the 4,000 goods vehicles which they have on the road? Yet those who do work to their agreements will have to pay for the enforcement of the law on people who do not work to those agreements.
I say frankly, that the time has arrived when this industry ought to put itself on a sound basis. It ought to honour its agreements. It ought not to arrive at agreements, nationally and locally, with the representatives of various organisations and then write round to its constituents and say, "Although we have come to this agreement, it is unnecessary for you and you are in no way obliged to meet it." I say, therefore, and I think I shall carry hon. Members on this side with me, that the remedy is in the hands of the industry itself. I have said often in this House that an Act is either a good one or a bad one and that by your Acts I shall know you. The Minister is trying to enforce this Act believing it to he a good Act. If the people who are within the ambit of that Act will work to it honourably and straightforwardly, they have the means themselves of reducing these fees and, better still, of giving us much safer roadways in this country, much more efficient men on the vehicles, and a much more satisfied community in general. I hope the Minister will stick to his guns.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. Foot: I think nearly all of us would agree with the plea put forward by the hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. B. Smith) for the strict enforcement of these parts of the Road Traffic Act of 1930 and the Road and Rail Traffic Act of 1933 which apply to drivers' hours. [Hon.

MEMBERS: "And records."] I am speaking of all the conditions which prevent drivers working for too long hours. We would all agree that employers who are guilty in that respect should be prosecuted with the full rigour of the law. But it did seem to me that the hon. Members who moved and supported this Motion, and the hon. Member for Rotherhithe were at cross purposes. While in no way disputing the argument that the law should be enforced, I would point out that what we are discussing now is who should pay for that enforcement and how that enforcement is to be financed. What we are discussing is the level of the licence fees. The Minister said what was obviously true, that if you have a five-year instead of a two-year period, naturally you have to charge a larger sum. But I do not think the Minister entirely met the objection which was not merely that a larger sum will be charged but that in the case of an A licence-holder the road charge will be doubled and in the case of a B licence holder it will be raised from £1 to 35s. I understand that the reason why this Motion is brought forward is that hon. Members suggest—I believe rightly—that this is an appreciable burden on the road hauliers of this country. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of 26,000 cases of infringements of the Acts. Nobody will defend the persons guilty of those infringements, but, as I understand it, that does not mean that there were 26,000 separate offenders. It means that there were 26,000 summonses.

Mr. Burgin: Convictions.

Mr. Foot: I am much obliged, but, even then, I do not think there were necessarily 26,000 separate offenders. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the industry should be responsible for the expense of enforcing the law. That seemed to be a rather remarkable doctrine. Is it proposed to say to the law-abiding road haulier, "We are going to put this additional burden on you because some other haulier is breaking the law"? If there is difficulty in enforcing the law, I should have thought that the charge would fall upon public funds and not upon those in the industry who are keeping the law. The right hon. Gentleman used another argument which seemed remarkable. He went into figures and said that in the last year he had a balance of £75,000 and that even in the


coming year, on his existing methods, he had a margin of £3,500. He went on to say that out of that sum would have to be borne the preliminary expenses of rate control, which would amount to at least £50,000 in a full year. But that system of rate control has not yet been imposed, has not yet, I think, been before Parliament.
It seems a very remarkable thing that we should be asked to budget for a charge on an industry which has not yet been imposed and which, for all we know, may never be imposed. I do not know what would happen to any Chancellor of the Exchequer who arranged his Budget on that principle and budgeted for a surplus. It seems a real hardship that any body of men should be asked to pay these increased fees, the weight of which no one has disputed, in order to meet a hypothetical charge. I cannot see that a case has been made out now for this increase. This is a considerable burden. I am particularly concerned for the B licence holder. The Road and Rail Traffic Act has operated particularly to the detriment of that class of haulier, the small men who have their own business, with probably one lorry, and very often drive it themselves, and try to eke out their livelihood by using the lorry for hire or reward in certain seasons of the year. Already they have to pay £1 Under the new regulation it will be 35s. a year. This objection applies as much to the old regulations as to the new, but I could never understand why the B licence holder should have to pay a higher annual rate than the A licence holder, who is generally in a better position to pay the charge.
One other objection was raised by those responsible for the Prayer to which I do not think the Minister referred at all. It was asked why this regulation, intended to last for a considerable time ahead, should be brought in under Provisional Order procedure. It was brought in, it appears, under Section 2 of the Rules Publication Act, 1889, on the ground that it was a case of urgency. Where was the urgency? After all, the regulations must have been in contemplation for a considerable time. They are not brought in to meet a temporary emergency, but they are to cover a period of five years ahead. Why is this particular machinery used which was designed only

for cases of urgency? Why should the Ministry seek to evade the ordinary provisions of the Rules Publication Act? Under those provisions those who objected would have had an opportunity of stating their objections in advance, before the regulations came into force. It is remarkable how Department after Department uses these urgency provisions for a purpose for which they could never have been intended when the Rules Publication Act was passed. It is remarkable that the right hon. Gentleman, in a fairly lengthy speech, made no reference to that and made no attempt to defend the action of the Department in using this provision. Because I believe the regulations have nothing to do with the question whether we should enforce the law but only how we should pay for the law, if a Division is taken I shall certainly vote for the Prayer.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Rathbone: There are only two small points with which I want to deal. What in fact is happening is that the innocent are being made to pay for the faults and transgressions of those who do not keep the law. I understood the Minister to say just now that as a result of these convictions the sum of money raised in fines amounted to about £450,000.

Mr. Burgin: The fines go into the Road Fund.

Mr. Rathbone: It is only right that the transgressors should pay for their transgressions, and it would appear that this would be an admirable case in which to make the fines pay for these costs of administration instead of going into a common pool. In regard to short-period licences, licences for a year or two years, which are payable so as to spread the Minister's work out over the five years more evenly, unfortunately it is not only the licence fees that are involved. There are also various legal fees, and if an application is contested, those costs may amount to a very considerable sum. Am I to understand that the people who get only a short-period licence, not a full five-years' licence, are to have to contest their application at the end of that short period all over again and go through all these legal costs again, and then, if they again apply for a five-years' period, they will have to go through these legal costs twice


in quick succession? It would appear to be a good case for allowing the recipients of short-period licences, of one or two years, to get their renewal after that short period without having to contest it.

10.53 p.m.

Sir R. Clarry: In view of the detailed explanation given by the Minister and his very definite undertaking to review this in two years' time, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — BREAKING UP OF STREETS BY STATUTORY UNDERTAKERS.

Resolved,
That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider those sections of the Gasworks Clauses Act, 1847, the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847, the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1936, and the Schedule to the Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act, 1899, which relate to the breaking up of streets for the purpose of laying pipes and other works, and to report what, if any, modifications of those provisions should be made to meet modern conditions with a view to their incorporation in future Bills and Orders promoted by statutory undertakers."—[Mr. James Stuart.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — POTATO MARKETING BOARD.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Hope.]

10.59 p.m.

Mr. Quibell: I wish to draw attention to the Order of the Potato Marketing Board prohibiting the sale of all potatoes exceeding 1 lb. in weight. I would not have done this had I received some assurance from the Minister that consideration would be given to the points put in my question to him on this subject yesterday. Some little time ago this House passed a Bill giving aid and encouragement to the farmers of the country to use basic slag and lime in order to increase the fertility of the soil. The farmers having complied with the Minister's express desire that they should increase the fertility of the land, the Potato Board then

issued this Order, on 3rd November, compelling a farmer who had succeeded beyond his expectations to throw out all potatoes over 1 lb. in weight. They may be given to the pigs or left on the land to rot, but if the farmer sells them he will be prosecuted—in the words of the Potato Board, "Sell them if you dare, and we will prosecute you." Potatoes of this quality are produced as a result of considerable expenditure of money and labour.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Furness.]

Mr. Quibell: And also a new and intensified system of agriculture. The system adopted is that the farmer in the great potato growing districts particularly in Lincolnshire—where the Minister has recently been making himself familiar with the kind of farmer who operates there—is to purchase the finest seed that money can buy and then to build a shed, or greenhouse as it might be described, where the potatoes are put sprouted. They are then put in boxes and carefully carted to the field where they are planted so as to produce a good crop. It is a highly desirable proceeding and one that ought to receive the encouragement of the Minister and the Potato Marketing Board. This system employs a considerable amount of labour and produces food that at the present price of 4d. for 14 lbs, is one of the cheapest foods in the country.
The system that the Potato Marketing Board requires the farmer to carry out can be described in this way. While the potatoes are passing over the riddle the farmer has to stand at the side and, relying entirely upon his judgment, pick out all the potatoes over 1 lb. in weight. I defy any Member of the House to judge a potato that is 1 lb. in weight. If the farmer fails to take the potato out he is liable to prosecution. Indeed, a case appeared in to-day's papers of a prosecution that is actually taking place for this offence. The farmer must rely on the judgment of the person standing by the riddle if the order is to be complied with. A more ridiculous or irritating order was never conceived by man. I would ask the Minister whether an order issued by the board can be stated to be good in law if


it is impossible strictly to observe its terms.
So far as the smallest potatoes are concerned, the operation is automatic because they pass through a riddle of a certain size, but here is an order which can only be carried out by a person using only his judgment. He has to take out potatoes of a certain size that go over the top of the riddle and it is imposing upon the farmer a liability that nobody can do correctly. The cost of attempting to carry out this order is by no means a small matter. It is striking a hard blow at a large number of my constituents, particularly in the Trent Valley, where they have developed this intensive system of cultivation. There is one grower in my division, or just over the border, who has 10,000 tons of potatoes, and 2,500 tons of these big ones among them. He is getting 52s. 6d. a ton for his potatoes, which is 4d. for 14 lb.

Captain Ramsay: Was the hon. Member right just now in saying that instructions had been received to destroy the potatoes? I understood that they were only to be held up?

Mr. Quibell: Not instructions to destroy them, but to throw them out. They can use them for the pigs or do what they like with them. They can re-earth them, but there is no assurance that they can afterwards be used. I remember what happened in 1930 when there was again a great surplus of potatoes. My society gave about 90 or 100 tons to the miners in Yorkshire. This time we are told that the growers must sell them to no one.

Captain Ramsay: For the present.

Mr. Quibell: That means they must earth them down again, go to all that expense when they are getting only 4d. for 14 lb. As I have said, these producers have built houses for the sprouting of the potatoes, then taken them carefully in boxes to the fields, and after such operations as ploughing, hoeing, scuffling, sorting, earthing down, picking, riddling and taking them to market they get the magnificent sum of 4d. per stone. After the grower has produced a fine crop of potatoes he is told by the board "Sell them if you dare and we will prosecute you." We ask the kindly earth to produce its fruits and then we calmly destroy them. This Order came into

operation on 3rd November. I have here a quotation from the "Fruit Grower" stating that in the week ending 5th November—that is the week prior to the Order coming into operation—the importation of potatoes into this country was 49¼ tons. The importation of potatoes in the week ending 12th November was 1,075 tons. That was in the first week after we had compelled the farmers to throw out the big potatoes.
We are compelling our farmers to throw out the potatoes which we have encouraged them to grow by granting them basic slag and lime, by "putting heart into the soil," as the Minister says, and building up its fertility. They had been asked to grow large crops because they might be wanted in case of emergency, and they were proud of the fact that their efforts might be of some assistance to the country. Then the board, over which, I understand, the Minister will say that he has no power, puts out a regulation to penalise the growers of the finest of the potatoes. I think no Member will say that such action can be justified. I have here one of these large potatoes. I have had it weighed, and it is I lb. heavier than the weight of the potatoes which are permitted to be sold. If that potato was passing over a riddle and we had to use our judgment as to the weight of it, I say there is not a Member of the House who would be able to tell the weight of it. Yet that is the obligation which is imposed upon the agricultural community. I have another potato which weighs 2 lb.
I do not wonder at the farmer's attitude. One of the greatest tests is for a man to put himself in the place of another, and if I had been the man whose quality was rejected, although I might not have expressed myself as did this man when he met the Minister, I should nevertheless have protested in as strong a way as possible against an Order which I believe is tending to discourage a good standard of agriculture. We shall want it some day. These irritating regulations are destroying not only confidence in the Ministry of Agriculture but in the Government of this country and in the power of this House to protect the producers and to give them what the railways are demanding, a square deal. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some assurance that he will draw the attention of the authorities to this matter, and to


the dissatisfaction that is being generally expressed by the farmers of the country at the imposition of this Order, which is destroying good food like this.

Sir Ernest Shepperson: If there was a surplus over the requirements in any year, how would the hon. Member take it off the market?

Mr. Quibell: I do not happen to be the Minister responsible, but I will answer the question. I would increase the size of the riddle at the bottom and then impose the additional cost of labour. The regulations of the Marketing Board do not apply to imported potatoes. If you increase the size of your riddle you increase the size of your potatoes.

Sir Joseph Lamb: The hon. Member would increase the size of the riddle; that means that he would let through the riddle a greater number of potatoes for which there is a market and which the housewife demands. The larger potatoes are of no use except for those who make chipped potatoes. The ordinary man who is buying potatoes for the housewife wants a potato of less size than that.

Mr. Quibell: The answer to the hon. Member is that one of these bags comes from a man who has 10,000 tons of potatoes to sell this year. If he does not know something about the subject nobody does. I have lived in this district as a boy, picking and planting potatoes. This man suggested that a practical way would be to increase the size of the riddle at the bottom and to keep the others out. It is no use the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) shaking his head. This man's name is a household word and is known to almost everybody. He has 10,000 tons of these potatoes, and that quantity includes 2,500 tons that he is not going to be allowed to dispose of. He knows where he can dispose of them; he knows his market; and he has protested very strongly, along with many big producers, who would not have produced these potatoes at great trouble and expense, unless there was a market in which they could sell them. I hope that the Minister will give us some indication that he will secure a reconsideration of what I believe to be a gross injustice.

11.16 p.m.

Mr. H. G. Williams: The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) was cross with

me because of a certain comment that I made while he was speaking, but, if it had not been for the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, of which his party were very proud, we should not have had a Potato Marketing Board. I am one of those who have never voted for any such board, because I do not like it. I am certain that the hon. Member, when standing for election, praised the policy of his own party, and said what wonderful fellows they were in 1931 because they invented the idea of a marketing board. Here the hen has come home to roost. It was the hon. Member's party who introduced the idea of marketing schemes, which I have never liked and have never supported. I have not been able to get all the information I should have liked to get on the subject, but I observe that in April, 1935, Mr. Glossop, who was then a Member of this House, asked a question about these 1-lb. potatoes, and the right hon. Gentleman who is now Minister of Health, and was then Minister of Agriculture, replied; and the interesting thing is that no hon. Member opposite took the opportunity of protesting against this regulation about 1-lb. potatoes. That was their real opportunity. It is 3½ years since the regulation was made.
I agree with the hon. Member. I do not believe in somebody in some office being able to say that you must not do this, that and the other thing. Although I am commonly regarded as a Right-Wing Tory, I am a Liberal in that respect. I believe in freedom of contract. On the Front Bench opposite is a right hon. Gentleman who stood for the principle of liberty at one time, until he went wrong. No human being in this country preached the doctrine of liberty more than he did. The right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for India when this Measure was passed for the purpose of depriving the subjects of His Majesty of their freedom of contract, and now at last the hon. Member for Brigg, who is a Labour Member, though not too Labour and not too Socialist, I am glad to observe, is indignant because his own constituents, as a result of an Act of Parliament invented by the Socialist party, are deprived of their freedom to sell potatoes over 1 lb. in weight. I think it is a good thing that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite should realise what are the ultimate


consequences of the Measure which they supported.

11.19 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. W. S. Morrison): The matter of which the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) complains arises out of the Potato Marketing Scheme of 1934, paragraph 66 of which says:
The board may regulate the sale of potatoes by any registered producer by determining from time to time the description of potatoes which may be sold and the terms on which potatoes of any description may be sold by any registered producer.
The scheme is founded, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) has just said, on the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931. The scheme itself was approved by Parliament in 1933, but the power is derived from the Statute of 1931. The object of the Statute was the perfectly simple one of giving producers the opportunity of combining together to regulate the sale of their products to their own advantage.
What is desired in connection with potatoes, as with other agricultural products, is a steady price and the avoidance of those severe fluctuations which arise from nature being very bountiful in one year and very niggardly in the next. The price of potatoes, as of other agricultural commodities, is regulated by supply and demand, and it so happens that the demand for potatoes is singularly rigid and inelastic, whereas the supply is very variable. The position is that in a normal year our acreage has been sufficient to give as many potatoes as we can consume in the country. Sometimes we are under-supplied, through seasonal causes, and have to import to meet the demand; and sometimes we are over-supplied, and then the effect on the producers is extremely severe. In 1930 there was an excess supply of 16 per cent., and that brought down the price to the producers, not by 16 per cent. but by 44 per cent. So it is evident that if the principle of the Agricultural Marketing Act is to be observed and the purpose for which it was designed fulfilled, there must be some method of regulating excess supplies.
The normal way of dealing with excess supply is by the use of a riddle, the function of which is to exclude from sale for human consumption potatoes under a certain size. The present regulation was designed by the Potato Marketing Board,

for the purpose of spreading the sacrifice more equitably over the producers. It so happens that there are parts of the country which produce small potatoes. They do not produce potatoes like those magnificent prodigies which the hon. Member displayed to the House to-night, but a smaller potato. But in the past the sacrifice has been borne entirely by those districts which produce the smaller potato.
This year it is estimated that the production will be 300,000 tons over that of last year, and it was felt by the board that as there had to be regulation to steady the market, the land which produced only small potatoes should not alone contribute to the sacrifice, but that some part of the common endeavour should be subscribed by districts like those represented by the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) which excel in the production of very large potatoes. The hon. Member suggests, on the advice, I gather, of his constituents, that it would be a more equitable thing to increase the size of the riddle, thereby preventing potatoes of a more normal size from reaching the consumers, and also avoiding any part of the sacrifice falling on the land which produces the big potatoes. As a matter of fact, the ordinary housewife, I think, would have reason to complain if she were denied the normal sized potato which is used in ordinary cookery.
I think it is just for the board to argue that the course they have taken is one which spreads the sacrifice over the districts in the most equitable manner and, at the same time, maintains a normal supply. The hon. Member asked me to refer to the question of importation. The control of imports is not part of the scheme, but is governed by the Potato Import Regulation Order, 1934, and it is worked through the agency of the Potato Imports Association, which has about 400 members. Each of these members is entitled to a fixed proportion of the quota about to be imported, and it is impossible to distribute among members of the association a monthly allocation of less than 1,000 tons. That is the actual fact. That is the minimum allocation which can be given in any one month if the potato trade is to exist at all. That sounds a very large figure, but when I tell the House that this immediate allocation of 1,000 tons is less than one-third of r per cent. of the total supply, they will see how little


effect such a tiny importation of potatoes can possibly have upon the market. In each of the last four months of this year the import quota has been precisely that minimum, and it is the view of the board and other people that, if you are to maintain in existence, even in a skeleton form, the channels of the potato trade abroad, so that you may use them at a time when nature denies us a plentiful harvest in our own market, that minimum should be maintained.

Sir E. Shepperson: Do you include in that figure the imports of potatoes from Northern Ireland, because I understand that last week the imports of potatoes from Northern Ireland were 2,000 tons? I would like to ask whether these potatoes from Northern Ireland are subject to the same riddle restrictions.

Mr. Morrison: I am not quite certain how the Northern Ireland scheme works, but prima facie I would say that imports from Northern Ireland are not included because Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

Sir E. Shepperson: Is it subjected to the same riddle restrictions, and the large potatoes taken off?

Mr. Morrison: I am not prepared to say without notice.

Mr. Quibell: I am informed that it is not.

Mr. Morrison: I should imagine that the importation from Northern Ireland has

very little effect upon the total supply. The matter to which my attention was directed was the foreign importation, and this very small quota can have very little effect on the position. The hon. Member for Brigg says that the regulation made by the board in this matter is impracticable. That is a matter upon which the board express a contrary opinion. It has been in operation in several districts and no complaints have been made on the ground of its impracticability.

Mr. Quibell: I gave cases.

Mr. Morrison: I would point out that under the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1931 there is a certain procedure laid down for dealing with complaints against marketing schemes, and the position of the Minister is prescribed. If anyone complains against a marketing scheme he must follow the course laid down in the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1931.
The board, when they made this regulation, expressed the view that this course is necessary because of the exceptional conditions and expressed the hope that the condition of the market would soon be such as to enable them to resort to the normal methods of regulating supply.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.